The Once and Future King
by Nate The Ape
Summary: A KK Lion King crossover where Jack and Ann suddenly find themselves translocated to the LK universe, where they play an unexpected role in the Circle of Life... Chapter 43 COMPLETE!
1. Strangers in a Strange Land

**Author's notes: Well all you Kong lovers, I'm going to be trying something wild and crazy here. As far as I can tell, no one's done a King Kong crossover fic yet, so I decided to go for broke and do one with-please don't laugh at me-the Lion King. Essentially, the plot is that while Jack is rescuing Ann from Kong's lair, they suddenly and unaccountably-although they might learn much later that a certain magic baboon's mistake might've caused it-end up in the Lion King universe for the movie's most important events, including _that _fateful day.Caught up in these dramatic happenings, all Jack and Ann can do is continue to protect each other and survive, as well as make some very unexpected friends along the way. And Driscoll and Darrow aren't the only ones who are "switched" from one universe to another...**

**I also have a confession to make. This is the first fanfic I've ever written that involves human romance. I've already watched the DVD several times, so I think I have more or less a good grasp on the relationship between Ann and Jack, as well as where it could go after the movie ended. But again, this is uncharted territory, and I don't mind advice from reviewers if they seem OOC in any way, shape, or form at all.**

**Well, enough of my babbling. Here's The Once and Future King !**

* * *

_"...and behold, there were very many bones in the open valley, and they were very dry."_ Ezekeiel 37:2 

"_Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake." _Job 4:14

_"Why not go on to thinking that there have been mysterious transportations of human beings?" _Charles Fort, Lo!, 1931.

Fearfully, Ann looked down at him with her blue eyes, probably terrified of the huge fall she could take if something went wrong while they shinnied down the thick vine. "Come on!" Jack shouted at her urgently, for there was no time for hesitation now.

In one fluid motion, Ann then slipped down and wrapped herself around Jack's shoulders, and he strained, tightening his grip as his muscular body took her weight. Above them and seen choppily in his field of vision, the huge gorilla roared in rage and shock as the satanic hairless bat-wolf things ripped and bit at him, dancing as he did the same to them in turn.

As he climbed down the vine, Ann clutching his form for all she was worth, Jack couldn't help but fleetingly feel a peculiar sense of gratitude towards the bat-wolf beasts and that they'd gone for the ape when they did. If they hadn't, the beast would almost certainly have crushed him like a rat under his fists by now, and all his tenacious, relentless efforts to get Ann _off _this hellish island would've meant nothing.

But what was good for the goose was good for the gander, and now four or five of the bat-wolves, jagged teeth agape, dived down and went for him and Ann as they dangled helplessly on the vine. Crying out in staccato, gasping exclamations of fear, Ann held on even tighter as Jack, maintaining his death grip on the vine, whirled and frenziedly kicked out at the hideous flyers attempting to set to work on them with tooth and claw.

Then, in a horrifying and chilling instant, Jack felt the thick vine move _upward _several feet like a rope being yanked. And that was exactly what was happening. He wasn't surprised at all to see that somehow, the huge ape had routed most of those bat-wolf things, and was looking down at him and Ann.

The look of primal rage and absolute hate in those umber eyes made Jack Driscoll's flesh creep, and the playwright could only gape in helpless terror as one of those leathery hands jerked the vine again, bringing him and Ann all the more closer.

It is said that people who are about to die a violent death often reach a state where suddenly, the terror more or less goes onto the back burner so to speak, and they feel both resigned and perfectly lucid. Jack had always dismissed that paradox as being pure hogwash, but as he watched the elephantine gorilla tense his muscles for another pull of the vine, he was surprised by the force and truth with which it hit him.

_It's one of those ultimate quirks of fate, just like the ones you've enjoyed putting down on paper so many times before, isn't it? You cheated death half a dozen times over the past 24 hours, and you'd be dead now if those bat-things hadn't attacked-but Fate just wanted to delay the moment and mess with your head! HA HA!_

Ann was yelling over his shoulder now, and the bat-wolf flyers were flapping their wings like tents in a windstorm while the colossal fisherman reeled his prize in. In seconds, the furious ape would seize him in his iron grip, either crushing him like a can or ripping him with those ivory fangs. _However he finishes me off, _Jack grimly thought, _I'm telling Ann I love her as I go._

But he didn't have to.

A set of jagged ivory teeth came at them from his right, and the obscene, foul-smelling bat-wolf reared up, obviously intending to bite either Jack or worse Ann, in the neck. A real possibility of escape, an idea so crazy that it just might work, exploded into the writer's mind then, and he grabbed the flyer's huge scythe of a wing-claw, every tendon taut as he transferred both his weight and Ann's to this unconventional plane.

And then…there was a huge flash of green-tan light which seemed to infuse them, a feeling of floating, and just as suddenly, with Ann still hanging on for dear life, Jack Driscoll found himself only six feet above the ground. He crashed to his knees, saying to himself, "What happened there?" while Ann let go of him and got to her feet. As he stood up in turn, he heard Ann give a slight gasp, and he whipped around, expecting to see either her ape abductor or another bat-wolf rushing at the two of them.

But it wasn't the case, and Jack's green eyes widened in amazement as he heard Ann say, "What is this place Jack?" There were steam vents and fumaroles scattered all around. There were hard, cracked, angular slabs and crags of granite and basalt, almost like the ones in-and the memory made Jack badly want to puke and start screaming repeatedly at the same time-the terrible insect pit.

It was dark, foreboding, misty and muggy-he couldn't see more than 20 yards in front of his face. But that was nothing when compared to the enormous skulls, shoulder bones, ribcages, pelvises, and other massive skeletons strewn piecemeal about them. They'd somehow, someway, ended up in Ezekiel's valley of bones.

"I couldn't even begin to tell you," Jack replied in confusion as his exhausted eyes swept over the deceased giants. His mind flashed back to how just fifteen or twenty minutes ago-was it truly that short of a time? It felt like months-he'd been picking his way among the pathetic bones of the huge ape's kin, and wondered if they'd somehow ended up on another part of the island's mountains. Exactly how or what could do that without causing them major bodily harm was something beyond the capabilities of what remained of his brain to figure out.

If so, the beast could be here sooner rather then later to have another try at killing him off, and he immediately clasped an arm around Ann's shoulders, his only explanation a hurried, "But we might not be as far away as we'd want," while he whipped his head back and forth for any sign the ape was close.

But even as Jack said it, he realized that none of the skeletons resembled what he'd seen in the caves. It also occurred to him that some of the remains still had hide or mummified flesh and tendon attached, and the ape bones hadn't had anything like that on them. If they did, Jack hadn't noticed it.

An instant later, comprehension dawned on him. He _had_ seen bones and skulls like these many times before-but not on Skull Island. Rather, he'd clapped eyes on them in the American Museum of Natural History. These were all elephant bones.

"Ann," Jack said, "I think we're in an-"

"Elephant graveyard," Ann softly replied, starting to tremble a bit.

With frightened eyes, she whirled around to look into his own, than buried her head against his shoulder, sobbing and shaking in evident fear. Drawing her close to him and embracing Ann back, Jack tenderly reassured her, comfortingly saying, "It's okay Ann, it's all right. I don't know where we are and how we got here either, but I'll always do my damnedest to keep you safe. Until my last drop of blood is shed, if need be," he added, fixing her welling eyes with his.

Stepping back slightly and raising her face up to the writer's as she wiped her tears away with her slender, graceful hand, Ann responded, "I know you will Jack. I'm not scared about what might happen to me. I'm scared about what might have _already _happened to us."

"Already happened? What could you possibly mean by that?" he quizzically asked. "All I know is that I'm alive, and you _especially_ are alive, and nothing else matters right now. We'll find a way to get back to the Venture," Jack gently added. "I promise you that we will. Besides, Englehorn wouldn't ever leave us to die here-wherever 'here' is," he wryly said.

Ann didn't seem to be listening to him, or at least only halfheartedly. She looked instead like she was mentally wrestling with a teasing, groping reality that was too abominable to be true. Then, although tense as a bowstring, she turned and asked him with amazing calmness, "Jack, you told me on the ship that you've always enjoyed reading classic literature. How much of those works have you read?"

"Quite a large fraction of them," Jack answered. "Reading and writing go hand in hand after all."

_Strange question,_ he thought. _And certainly a strange situation to ask it in. But she must just desperately want to focus her mind on something normal for a change. I certainly don't blame her._

"Then have you read Dante's _Divine Comedy_ by any chance?" saying this in a hushed voice.

"Yes, I have. I've certainly always found it to be a very interesting and thought-provoking book myself," he responded. "Why do you ask?"

"Well then, I take it you've read his description of what Limbo is like then," Ann dispassionately stated. "You know, a place where there is no pain or suffering experienced, but the sun is always obscured by clouds and the mood is bleak and depressing, with nothing beautiful to look at."

"Of course. You summed it up nicely by the way." Wary suspicion struck him. "Wait a moment-" Jack asked, "what are you implying Ann?" He had a sneaking, mounting suspicion that his dame was climbing to a conclusion that he didn't think she should touch.

The blue eyes filled with tears, raw and desperate, as Ann half shrieked, half sobbed out, "_We are in Limbo right now Jack!"_ As if it was a terrible litany that she'd been forced to spout under torture, she babbled on, "I don't know whether it was Kong, those horrible bat things, or maybe we just fell, but we've both been killed. We're _dead!"_

He wanted to tell her that it was _not _so, that they were still breathing after all and their hearts still beat, but before he could fling the words from his mouth, Ann sat down in terror, saying in a giantesses' despairing groan, "Oh my God Jack, you and I are both _DEAD_!"

And as if sadistically reveling in her despair, something passing by in the white cloak of fog, almost at the limits of their hearing yet uncomfortably close, dementedly cackled and hooted in answer.

* * *

**Oooh, who or what could that noise belong to? I need to mention here that I have a whole lot of classwork to attend to in this second half of my semester, so I unfortunately may not have another chapter up for quite a while. And again, please review and tell me if they run true!**


	2. The Cackle in the Mist and the Mandrill

**As you can see, I've revised Chapter Two of my story. I thought the first one I put up, although good, was utimately too short for my liking. In addition, I thought it would be great to show how a canon character from The Lion King "already knew" Jack and Ann had arrived, partly to hold the interest of readers, and partly to extend an aspect of the story that exists anyway backwards a bit. Hopefully not too much is being given away.**

**Now that that's done, I just have to get something off my chest here. To be blunt, I am SO pd off at my local zoo right now-and I'm being kind. You see, I live fairly close to the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley. Since 2001, they've had a wonderful exhibit called Meerkats Of The Kalahari there. It's been repeatedly deemed safe by inspectors, has been a huge hit, and has never had any problems. Two weeks ago though, some little girl climbed the rockwork around the exhibit and somehow got her hand close enough to a meerkat to pet it. Well, the meerkat did what wild animals do, and she got bitten hard on the finger. To make a long, sordid story short, the parents wouldn't let her undergo rabies shots, and because the specific animal couldn't be identified, the entire family of five meerkats was enthunanized for rabies testing. _Family_ is the operative word here folks. Oh yes, did I mention that the meerkats in question had already had rabies shots and it was just some damn law that required it? Needless to say, I and a lot of others are outraged. Utterly, blood-boiling outraged.**

**Anyway, now that I've vented, here's the revised chapter.**

* * *

"_However...one doesn't want mere baboons blundering about with Time Matrices, does one? Who knows what harm they might do?_" Megamorphs #3: Elfangor's Secret. K.A. Applegate. 

"Everyone makes mistakes." Anon.

The feral animal noise, so similar to the sounds that that repulsive old woman had uttered to her like the most terrible curse words, suddenly galvanized Ann out of her fearful despair. Whether she and Jack _were_ dead right now like she deeply suspected, -_together forever indeed, _she grimly thought- and presumably no longer able to be killed, Ann still didn't want to be just sitting around for the whatever-it-was to arrive.

Already, Jack was reaching down for her arm, quiet and hushed as he urged, "Come on Ann, let's get out of this place." Happy to oblige, Ann rose on the balls of her now substantially abused feet, and then heard another one of the manic cackles ring out again, giving her alarmed goose bumps as she and the writer she'd come to adore broke into a canter together.

Even as Jack clutched her hand with his own, and adrenaline spurted through her body for the umpteenth time, Ann couldn't help but wonder if whatever she and Jack were fleeing from wasn't exactly of their world. Were there demons running around here in Limbo too, come up from the lower depths every once in a while to have a bit of sport, or maybe to deal with a soul that just wasn't gloomy enough?

She didn't think Dante had said anything about any demons residing there, but if even the clergy couldn't give her a satisfactory answer about what happened in those shadowy lands beyond mortal existence, -and of course, no one she'd lost was ever going to spill the beans to her-, then neither could some long-dead Italian poet.

All of a sudden, there was a hot, sore wrench in an ankle as Ann tripped over a pachyderm pelvis. Crying out in shock and pain, she fell with a crash into a pile of bones, her hand being torn out of Jack's grip. Jack wasted no time, just as she'd been hoping for and anticipating.

Whipping around, he was back with her in an instant, asking, "Ann! Are you alright?"

Before she could even give an affirmation, the terrible, insane chuckle came at them again, more closely, and Jack picked up what used to be one of an elephant's limb bones as Ann shuffled backwards to his feet. Holding it like a baseball bat, he stood ready to defend her against the Something that Ann was trying to pick out of the fog with her vision, and not for the first time she felt thankfulness to have him at her side.

A minute crawled by as they both stood frozen, rooted, in anxious silence. Then Ann heard, just barely, the sound of gravel shifting under some large creature's weight, and Jack stepped forward to get in front of her, standing tall as it came again-but she could now hear that their stalker had turned, and was now apparently padding away in the thick, muggy fog. Perhaps it had merely been curious all along, like the huge ape had initially been with her acting performance. Sighing, Ann got back to her feet as Jack lowered, but didn't let go of his impromptu club.

"Thank you Jack," she tenderly said, squeezing her selfless rescuer's hand and looking into his exhausted green eyes.

He hugged her lightly then, repeating, "Just me doing my damnedest."

"I suppose it was really more scared of us than we were of it," Ann said thoughtfully after they separated, looking back into the now silent mist. "But this might not be the only thing that can come out at us, I suppose."

"No," Jack agreed, still holding his bone club. "So we'd better move on." Together, they headed north through the grim valley of bones and geysers, Ann trying not to further abrade or cut her delicate feet any further.

On average, a woman's hearing is more acute then a man's. So as they left the place where she'd tripped, Ann almost swore to herself that she could hear in the fog, albeit as faintly as a mouse walking over a table, a stern feminine voice saying, "_Banzai, we're here because we have a job Scar entrusted us with, not to shadow and stalk random trespassers. Stay put and quit doing stupid things for once, okay?" _

Giving the fog behind her a bemused look with her blue eyes, Ann dismissed it by shaking her head. She'd had no food, little water, and only about four or five hours of sleep during her time as the gorilla's toy and prisoner. It was natural that she'd be hearing things after all. Yeah, that had to be it. Besides, who knew what were "normal things" to hear and feel when you were-dead?

* * *

The cool of the morning was always a good time to collect medicinal herbs and plants, and Rafiki's bi-daily collecting excursion had been pleasantly successful indeed. Now, hands on his hips, the old mandrill contentedly stood in the green depths of his baobab tree, having placed the bowstring hemp and brimstone tree bark and giant milkweed and African wormwood in their respective nooks, with some sausage tree fruit hanging up top to be dried. 

Other than a zebra mare who'd gotten a shallow but painful cut on her nose, a mother caracal who could _not_ get her kittens to stay put whenever she had to leave them alone, and a male crested porcupine who "just couldn't stand the fleas and ticks anymore!" as he'd shouted in desperation for a treatment, no one had really needed Rafiki's services as a healer or advisor today. For the moment then, that meant he had nothing to do, no responsibilities. Even King Mufasa and his pride were keeping to themselves today, neither Simba nor Nala showing any interest in coming over for a story or magic trick.

Feeling somewhat hungry then, he told himself, "Old Rafiki thinks it's time for a morning snack," and sat down to a pile of jackalberry fruits he'd collected earlier, popping the orange and red spheres into his mouth like cherry tomatoes, savoring the taste. Every moment in life was one to bask in after all, especially the pleasurable ones.

All of a sudden, the air temperature went down several degrees, and a mild wind cut through the leafy screen, blowing the mandrill's mane and beard. "Huh?" he questioned, looking over his shoulder even as he figured out that it wasn't a wind at all.

"Ah, Mwaguzi!" Rafiki exclaimed happily, turning and getting to his feet. "What brings you here to visit your old apprentice?"

The wind blew gently again and Rafiki nodded, answering, "Yes, I will go see for myself."

Taking up a tortoise shell filled with a small amount of water, he put some rose quartz gravel in it, then sat down, carefully shifting it this way and that. To a human or most other animals, the patterns formed by the pebbles and ripples would've been so much Greek. To Rafiki though, they were full of meaning.

Nor was this the first time today the mandrill shaman had used the tortoise shell. Earlier that morning, he'd used it in a "looking glass" spell, allowing him to idly observe goings on in places that ranged anywhere from other pride kingdoms, to other regions of Africa, to other continents, even other universes if he chose.

For the first time in his life however, he realized with a profound shock that today's "looking glass" spell had gone terribly wrong. After gaping in incredulity, he hung his head in a deflated, disgusted attitude for a few brief moments before the wind blew again.

Looking up, he said in a voice tinged with frustration and embarrassment, "Yes Mwaguzi, old Rafiki knows dat sometimes dey can be doorways and dat he made a king-sized mistake. I agree, dey must be sent back as quickly as possible. In fact, I will look for both of dem right now," he suggested, getting to his feet and reaching for his staff.

The wind unexpectedly blew harder then, stopping Rafiki in his tracks. For an instant, the shaman looked like a boy being chided, then opened his mouth in amazement. "Dey _need_ to stay here in de Pridelands for a time?" he voiced, utterly flabbergasted as he put his hands on his hips.

"Come on Mwaguzi, you know as well as I dat dey are a liability, to say nothing of de fact dat de humans have no idea how to survive out here," he snorted skeptically.

The wind blew again, for a moderate length of time and Rafiki's face softened. "Yes, I remember now dat what I saw involved both of dem. You are right, no living creature deserves to suffer through dat, especially de male one in de horrid gorge and de female with de rexes," he agreed, nodding sympathetically.

Then, sagely stroking his beard and thoughtfully gazing into the leaves above him, Rafiki continued, "I also fully agree dat dey must be pretty sore and badly scratched, so of course old Rafiki will help dem out with dat, but why do you say I must do it from afar Mwaguzi?"

The wind blew again, and the mandrill cringed slightly, as if seeing a hideous sight only he could see, barking twice in anger before looking almost self-conscious. "You are too right. Old Rafiki _does_ look far too much like dose human demons, especially _her._ Gives all us shamans a very bad name, wicked actions like dat."

"But you say dere is another reason why de two of them must stay. I do not pretend to know Mwaguzi, so you must tell your ignorant pupil."

Another gust of wind rustled the still leaves, and Rafiki said in disbelief, "Say dat again." The wind came a second time, and although he tried to smother it, the mandrill burst out in wild laughter, hooting and slapping his thighs.

"De humans will have a part to play very soon in de Circle of Life? A big part? And dat I will need to reveal myself to dem at de right time. Oh, Mwaguzi, I know dat you've always been better then old Rafiki when it comes to de tricky matter of seeing de future, but now I know you're pulling my tail!"

Immediately, the wind in the baobab seemed to take on a malevolent character, blowing into a gale that only touched Rafiki's person. Bent over like a hyena protecting its face from a lion's claws, Rafiki submissively gabbled, "Okay, alright, alright! And no, I'm certainly not saying you're a liar Mwaguzi!"

The wind stopped then, and the shaman, after regaining his composure, supplicated "It is just that I find the idea dat two human strangers will do such important things when dey've never seen dis place at all very hard to believe. But as you told me while I was still apprentice, you can never predict for a fact which creature de Circle may use as a pivot point."

The wind came once more, in a soft, breezy, almost approving manner. Charmed, Rafiki gently smiled and said, "You're welcome my teacher. I'm glad I learned well, and I can easily keep myself hidden until it is time. Always a great pleasure when you visit me."

At that moment, anyone with Rafiki in the baobab would've both felt and seen the unnatural interior wind disappear entirely, and probably felt a subtle, invisible presence slipping away. Before it was gone entirely though, Rafiki, suddenly realizing he'd forgotten something, called out "Wait Mwaguzi! What are de human's names? I can't just go around calling dem Male Human and Female Human when I must show myself after all," he said, giving a cackling chuckle.

One last time, the wind blew, soft as a butterfly's wings.

Rafiki nodded, then suddenly all alone, repeated them in his Caribbean accent.

"Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow."


	3. The Talking Elephant

**I decided to revise and expand on this chapter a little, partly because I wanted to capture something of what the "spider pit" meant to Jack personally, and partly because I failed to consider that Skull Island had literally given him and Ann a real beating.**

**Other than that, Jack and Ann now find out how beautiful, and truly strange, the Pridelands really are.**

* * *

"_With Tantor, the elephant, he made friends."_ Tarzan of the Apes. Edgar Rice Burroughs.

"_I was just trying to figure out what our next move might be when the zoological equivalent of the explosion of the Tunguska Meteor occurred a few yards away."_ Death In The Dark Continent. Peter Capstick, 1983.

The weight of the elephant bone in his right hand gave Jack a reassuring sense of security from its heft, a ready-made club he could use to wield against anything that might attack the two of them. Not for the first time, he lightly shook his head in chagrin that he hadn't brought along any weapon, even a simple spear or knife, when going to the huge ape's lair to rescue Ann. He was smarter than that, but to be fair he hadn't exactly had the luxury of time to ferret out a dropped Tommy gun or machete in that murk.

Truth be told, he wasn't so sure that they weren't just wandering through a larger, more open version of that horrific insect-haunted chasm, and he constantly kept expecting a dog or pony or horse sized, obscene multi-legged thing to come scrambling out from behind one of the piles of bones or over a gray ridge. "Great ugly things, all legs and wings, with vicious jaws and tails armed with nasty long stings," an 18th century reverend had once contemptuously written of insects. And Jack Driscoll now wholeheartedly agreed.

Oh God, that would give him grade-A nightmares and vomiting sessions for the rest of his days. When those crickets the size of bobcats had been swarming him, their claws sticking into his skin, the desperate chokes and staccato gasps he'd been making hadn't merely been the cries of a living creature protesting his imminent death, oh no. He'd had the stark screaming horrors. Christ laid out on a lunch table, he hoped he'd never encounter reason to have that feeling again!

In the desperate heat of battle, and the equally frantic rush to retrieve Ann-or at least know her fate for certain-Jack hadn't felt any pain at the time. But now he could feel the stinging twinges from the red lines that crosshatched his back and shoulders where the vile demons had clawed him up. Even though they'd been from insects, they felt oddly like the scratches that Mercutio, his old seal-point Siamese who'd died the previous July, would sometimes give him when in a mood.

He was a mass of huge, aching bruises all over, and his arms, trousers, and undershirt were all spattered with the clear, viscous hemolymph and dirty yellow entrails of the obscene insects, due to the rounds of Jimmy's Tommy gun. The hellish image came to his mind of a huge cricket's dead, robotic face, great soulless obsidian eyes looking into his own, claws sticking into the sensitive skin of his throat and scalp as he tried to keep its serrated jaws away, then an explosion of clear blood and custard tissue smacking into him-he suddenly wanted for just an instant to lie down on the bones and _scream_. At least he'd be letting it all out and it would take his mind off the horrific memory.

Snapping back to the present, Jack thought, _but don't dwell on it just yet Jack. It's in the past now, and I went through it to get Ann back by my side again. And if it were asked of me, I'd gladly fight off more of those abominations for her._

Smiling, he turned to watch her trot alongside him through the giant pachyderm charnel house. There was no more indication that the cackling stalker they'd fled from was still trailing them, and now the gray fog was thinning out, giving way to spirit-lifting blue sky over a ridge.

It had been quite late at night when he'd arrived to rescue Ann from the gorilla, and it did deeply confuse Jack briefly that it had become daytime all of a sudden, as if the clock had decided to jump forward. But that was irrelevant. What mattered was that they were seeing a bright blue sky at all, ever again.

"The sky's finally showing," Jack gratefully announced, and it gave him pleasure to see Ann's face light up in response as well at the news.

"I knew you'd lead us out of here Jack Driscoll," she confidently grinned, and they began their ascent.

The ash and bones provided a rather loose footing for climbing, and both of them were battered, aching, and terrifically tired, but Jack reached the ridge's top, got to his feet in the dry, warm wind with Ann-and stood bolt upright in both amazement and surprise.

He'd been fully expecting to see yet another expanse of Skull Island's forbidding jungle and cragged terrain. But this landscape was as different from that one as a person could conceive. Instead, before them stretched a sea of golden grassland, scattered with umbrella acacias and wild olive trees, illuminated by a dazzling yellow sun hanging in a cloudless blue sky. A warm wind blew across the amber grass in gentle waves, and heat haze lightly danced on the horizon.

It was absolutely lovely. But that wasn't the half of it.

All around there were great herds of animals, an astounding open-air zoo of them. So many creatures that Jack had only had the pleasure of seeing in zoos or the circus menageries were running around, free as the wind. Instead of having that hunched, half-crazy, despondent look that had always caused him to truly pity the captives, these ones had a fire inside, a vivacious sparkle in their eye, a real joy of being.

There were zebras, those beautiful striped horses, grazing among vast herds of grunting and muttering gnus that were beyond counting. A pair of impala stags postured and threatened with their lyre-shaped horns, while a troop of baboons strolled along, picking up insects and other tidbits where they could. A group of about two dozen banded mongooses, grizzled gray animals the size of large rats with sharp black dorsal stripes, ran and scurried nose-to-tail through the grass after insects and spiders.

The air resounded with the engraver-needle whining of cicadas, and grasshoppers scraped out chirping ditties of their own. A mother cheetah calmly sprawled out on a termite mound, watching the horizon with her agate eyes as her cute trio of quarter-grown cubs gamboled around her, while hawks, vultures, and eagles circled in the azure sky.

"Oh my God Jack, this is so beautiful," Ann gasped out in awe. And oh yes, it was. No matter how they'd got here, the whole _place _just felt like a soothing fresh start. There was a heady, wild sense of freedom that made you just want to break into an energetic run. Not that Jack felt in any condition for it. Somehow, they'd been plucked out of Conan Doyle's Lost World-and found themselves in Roosevelt's Africa.

"This is an absolute paradise," Jack whispered, overwhelmed by the stunning vistas.

"Perhaps it truly is," Ann replied in a half-serious tone.

_She still thinks that we might both be dead and in Heaven now, _Jack sorrowfully thought. _I'll try to change that. _

"Ann, put your hand against my chest," he quietly asked. Confused, she did so. "Do you feel my heart beating? And how I'm breathing in and out?"

"Yes Jack Driscoll, and it's the best feeling I've ever had," she answered.

"Good. Now do you feel the sun on your skin and the wind in your hair?"

"Certainly I do," came the response.

"Then Ann," Jack said gently yet matter-of-factly as he looked into her blue eyes, "I can assure you, with evidence that strong, that you and I are most certainly not dead. We're just-misplaced, that's all."

For a few moments, he could almost see the gears in her brain turning, considering. Then a relief, an acceptance came into Ann's eyes, and she relaxed, nodding. "You're right Jack, we're both very much alive indeed. It's just that the way we got here, however it was, sure seemed very much like dying to me, so I thought we had."

Thinking of the stop and the flash of light, Jack nodded in agreement. "I certainly don't blame you. But now that we're safe again, I'm sure you haven't had anything to drink or eat since last night, and must be tired as hell. I certainly haven't."

"No," she confirmed, "and you seem just as worse for wear yourself."

The lack of sleep, desperate pursuit, and both physical and psychological trauma were badly straining Jack's body, the bright yellow sun sending daggers of pain into his green eyes as he flicked his hair to the side and scanned for a sheltered place for him and Ann to rest. He could feel his muscles softly spasming, and his skin was a worrisome shade of pale. He truly felt like death warmed over.

To the left of them and about half a mile away, there was a strip of trees, which meant shade and most likely a stream. He hoped it wasn't dried out. Turning to Ann, he announced, "I think I just found a place for us to rest, maybe even have a drink."

"Good. You lead us then," she replied, yawning.

Holding his bone club, Jack led her across the savanna as the animals in their path stared at them intently, then calmly loped out of their way. Occasionally meeting their gaze even as he scanned the grass for lions, the playwright couldn't help but notice that there seemed to be an unusual, honest-to-God intelligence in the eyes of the beasts, and even something of a sparkling, childlike curiosity. Odd and nutsy as he knew it was, it actually gave him something of a weird feeling, like they could…talk if they wanted to.

But he dismissed it, and continued onwards, feeling the soreness of his bruises, the pleasant warmth of the sun on his back, and the thrilling, silky sensation of Ann's delicate hand in his as the grass stems brushed against his legs. They moved sluggishly, tired and aching, used and abused muscles groaning in protest, the writer feeling like his temples were being slowly crushed and a cinder block was dangling from his nape by a coarse rope, but still pressing on.

On reaching the edge of the streamside woods, walking into the cool shade of the clustered African greenheart, figs, and wild olives, catching the greenhouse smells of humus and mud and dead leaves, Jack found, as he'd expected and hoped, a thin trickle of water.

It was narrow enough to easily leap over. The water was beige in color and sandy, but it was water, and without a word, the writer and the actress began to gratefully drink from their cupped hands in the shade, swallowtail butterflies and dragonflies flapping and hovering around them like jewels as the liquid, flutelike voices of black-headed forest orioles and the bark of a bushbuck cut through the still air.

The peace only lasted for several seconds though. All of a sudden, Jack heard a low, deep, growling rumble. Leaping up to his feet, he seized the bone again while Ann got behind him, and they listened. It was from something very, very big, and they could hear sticks and leaves cracking as it walked. Time seemed to crawl.

The rumble came again, and was then followed by a trumpet. As Jack flashed around, pulling Ann with him while adrenaline gushed into his veins, an enormous bull African elephant, ears flapping like sails, tusks like ivory lances, came exploding out of the brush, rushing after them with deceptive speed.

_Tantor_, Jack crazily thought, recalling Tarzan's elephant friend from the pulp novels. But this elephant, needless to say, was in no frame of mind to be friendly.

To be true, it was small potatoes compared to the infuriated ceratopsian that had so explosively shown him and the other people in the rescue party that no, dinosaurs actually _hadn't_ been extinct for six million years-and almost shattered his smarting pelvis-or the stampeding Brontosaurs he'd had to face in the tight gorge, and at least there was just one.

_But one is plenty deadly enough,_ Jack thought as the bull came after them. As an eminent social figure, he often got to consort with all sorts of equally famous personages. One of these, who he'd met twice before his death in '26, was Carl Akeley, responsible for elevating taxidermy into almost a science and filling the American Museum's halls with magnificent mounts he'd taken himself.

Last time they'd had occasion to meet, Akeley had told them all about how a bull elephant had dealt him a several-minute battering that was so horrific, his party had temporarily left him for dead. And it sure seemed, in yet another of those too-funny ironies, that this would be Jack Driscoll's ultimate fate as well. He'd gone through so much, faced cannibals, giant insects, dinosaurs, a gargantuan viperfish/mudskipper monster, and a gorilla bigger than it had any right to be, all to rescue Ann-and an ordinary elephant, just like in the Central Park menagerie, was going to kill him.

There was no way they could outrun it, not this close. When the gap closed though, he knew that he'd face it down himself. He'd far rather take a beating like Akeley than see the bull harm a hair on Ann's head. There was another trumpet now, much closer, and he looked over his shoulder to see the elephant almost floating through the scrub in a sort of stiff-legged run.

He could hear Ann desperately panting as he poured on even more speed. And then, Jack Driscoll tripped.

"No!" Ann shrieked as he went head over heels.

"Keep running! Just forget about me!" Jack roared out, even as she fearlessly started running back to him.

"_Save yourself Ann!_" his mind screamed. This was it, and he only felt a deep sadness that Ann would have to witness his death.

With a loud trumpet, the elephant arrived, and was almost breathing down his neck. "Please!" Ann begged, eyes wet with tears as the elephant loomed. "For the love of God, don't kill him. Please!" she desperately urged, as if the animal would understand.

As she begged for his life, Jack flipped around onto his back at the same time, fully expecting to see the bull's ivory tusks descending to impale him, or that massive trunk about to cave in his skull with one swipe. But the elephant, all six tons of him, was just standing still and tall with that monolithic head held high, glaring down his tusks at both of them with those hooded brown eyes.

Then, to Jack's utter astonishment, the bull elephant backed away several yards and took a more relaxed stance. His mind swirled.

"Ann. How. Did. You. Do. That."

" I sure wish I knew," she responded in an equally shocked tone.

Slowly getting to his feet, Jack decided to try an experiment. "Can you comprehend what we are saying?" he cautiously asked the elephant, strangely not feeling stupid about it at all.

If gaping in astonishment had been in Jack Driscoll's repertoire of gestures, he would've done it then as the elephant cocked his ears, then actually _nodded._ An elephant nodded at them in a thoughtful, on-command manner.

Ann gave a knife-sharp intake of breath. "Good Lord Jack, he understands us!"

He'd seen elephants do all kinds of fantastic tricks at the circus before in his life. No doubt in his mind, they were extremely smart and sensitive beasts indeed. But this was a whole new level of intellect.

Physicist Arthur Eddington had once written that an army of monkeys, each tapping away at random on a typewriter, could in time write all the texts contained in the volumes of the British Museum. As far as Jack figured, the odds that an elephant would just _happen_ to perform the gesture of nodding back after he asked it a question was fifty times more unlikely than all those blasted monkeys churning out every single Dickens novel.

And then the elephant took things to a new dimension of wonder.

He opened his mouth, and in a deep, cavernous _voice_, questioned, "Where did you human things come from and why are you in the Pridelands?" Jack's emerald eyes widened, and he looked into Ann's own china-blue ones. They were as huge as lollipops, and he suspected that his looked equally striking.

_I did not just hear what I thought I heard._

"What is the matter with the two of you?" the bull pressed. Jack and Ann just stood stock upright, neither of them moving a shocked muscle.

First seeing living dinosaurs, then being attacked by a massive black ape the size of a house, and now meeting a talking elephant. What a day. Reality itself seemed to be disintegrating, and Jack swore he could almost _hear_ the hinges of the door between sanity and madness opening in his psyche.

"Oh dear," the elephant said, rubbing his head with his trunk, "I've gone and spooked you." Ann opened her mouth, once, twice, like a fish, but no words came out.

"This can't be possible," Jack whispered. "Beasts can respond to and take orders, but they can't talk." He was conscious of Ann tucking her legs underneath her and sitting down. Hard.

_Let's just stop and look at this in a rational way Jack Driscoll. Your tired old brain can still do that much, right?_

This had to be a trick. In all the time he'd been working as a playwright and involved in theater, Jack Driscoll had seen some very nicely done props and effects to fool the audience into a greater sense of realism. He wondered if there was a small radio perhaps, that was either attached to or inside the elephant.

_Silly idea, but come on, who ever heard of an elephant talking?_ he reflected. Carefully and suspiciously, he circled the elephant as it obligingly stood still, looking for surgical scars, clamps, a box hidden in the armpits or groin, a bulge of some kind. There were none.

Suddenly, the brutal truth hit him. After the giant ape had thrown him and the others on the log down into the nightmare chasm, he'd hit his head hard, and had blacked out for what, several minutes? Then, when he'd plunged madly into the jungle by himself after Ann, when all the others had given up on her, he'd had to stop to vomit twice. Until then, Jack had just assumed the nausea was the result of the chasm's horrors and the stress he'd been under.

But now, he realized that he was likely concussed. And the blow to the head, he understood, had done something else too. Sitting down next to Ann and grasping her hand, he chuckled mirthlessly. Temporary or no, Jack Driscoll, intelligent, level-headed playwright, had gone insane.

* * *

**Back in the 1920's and 1930's, the science of dating rock strata was in its infancy. Based on what data they could get with the best instruments available at the time, geologists believed that dinosaurs had only been extinct for 4-6 million years, depending on the authority. **


	4. Coping With A New Reality

**Yawns. Oh man, this chapter took quite a bit longer to do than I thought. I'm going to have to take a serious break to attend to my academics though, so I thought you readers deserved an especially nice portion to tide you over. At this point, I must admit that it'll take another chapter or two before Jack and Ann finally meet Simba and Nala in their cubhood, so do bear with me. Still, the experiences Driscoll and Darrow will have until that time will be anything but boring... Finally, in this chapter, I've tried to probe into Ann's way of thought and outlook, at least as I see it. If you readers enjoy it, then I've done my job just fine. And last but definitely not least, I'd like to give a big shout-out to my reviewers!**

**Disclaimer: All characters in here belong to Weta, Disney, and Universal except for Indlovu (elephant in Zulu) who is my own creation.**

* * *

_The forest provides food to the hunter after he has been utterly exhausted. _Zimbabwean Proverb.

_"This officially rates a 9.0 on my Weird-Shit-O-Meter."_ Will Smith, Men In Black, Amblin Entertainment, 1997.

As a hollowly chuckling Jack grasped her right hand, sitting down with her in the Rhodes grass, Ann felt her body quiver as she just dumbly stared at the great elephant. She wondered if she was going to scream her lungs out, then faint, just like she'd done when the ape first took her. _Don't lose it girl, don't lose it girl, don't lose it girl._ she chanted in a mantra inside her head.

Perceiving something with your senses and knowing that it's occurring is one thing. Accepting and believing it is another thing entirely. This was like being plopped right into a fairy tale. _Kipling, eat your heart out, _Ann thought.

The elephant sighed, saying "Perhaps it would be less intimidating if I sat down," which he then did.

Next to her, Jack exhaled hard, and closed his eyes, saying, "Ann, I know it's not very manly, but I am seriously wondering if this moment would finally be a good time for a complete nervous breakdown. But don't worry, even if I have gone wacko, I would never harm you."

"I know you wouldn't, Jack. And since you and I are undergoing the same experience, at least we've both gone mad together."

"Let's take this one step at a time," the talking seated elephant patiently told them. "As far as I can see, neither of you is insane. And if you humans have any doubt about my existence, feel of my trunk," the bull said, sticking the wrinkled gray appendage out at them.

Coming forward on his hands and knees, Jack tentatively touched the elephant's trunk first, giving a grunt as it lightly snaked around his wrist, then let go as the playwright nodded. Ann was next, reaching out and feeling the warm, leathery, supple, creased tube of muscle slide along her hand. Yes, this was very much a real animal, not a figment of her imagination.

"May I ask you two humans some questions?" the elephant pressed.

"You're an elephant. Elephants can't possibly speak or ask questions," Jack said flatly.

At this the bull thought for a moment. "If I'm not supposed to be able to speak, and what you are hearing is the product of madness, then what harm would it do to converse back in turn?"

_He has a very good point, _Ann decided as she and Jack briefly gave each other considered looks. "None, to be frank," she answered softly.

Getting back to his feet again, the bull stated, "That's correct. My name's Indlovu by the way, and I am the 12th ranking bull in the Pridelands. What are your names?"

"I'm Jack Driscoll, a playwright from New York City in the United States of America," Jack responded. "If those locations mean anything to you," he wryly added with a faint smirk.

"And I'm Ann Darrow, a former vaudeville actress, also from New York City. I've worked on the stage for much of my life." _Might as well accept what I cannot change, _she thought with a mental shrug. Besides, the elephant seemed nice enough.

"Now-Indlovu right-I have a question of my own," Jack asked. "Why did you charge us?" Ann remembered the terror of thinking that her hero, her love, was going to be impaled or crushed before her eyes.

"The two of you just spooked me while I was browsing, that was all," Indlovu replied, shrugging his massive gray shoulders. "Plus, I could smell that you'd been in the Elephant graveyard, and had the scent of my dead kin about you, which upset me. But I'm sorry for giving you humans such a scare."

"And do not worry Ann," the elephant gently interjected as he turned to face her, "I would not have harmed your consort unless he'd injured me in some fashion as well. I only meant to drive the two of you away, not to kill. You were brave to stand by him."

"No harm done," Ann said with a smile.

Indlovu continued. "Speaking of which, it is quite rare for humans, especially unarmed ones such as yourselves, to appear in the Pridelands. How did you arrive here, Jack and Ann? Were you both in an accident? Did you get separated from your band? Or did you both agree to make a new life for yourselves out here?"

Ann's eyes met Jack's green ones, then they both looked into the soft brown ones of the elephant. What should they tell him? That in her case, she'd gone on a tramp steamer to a hellish isle named Skull Island, tempted by money and the fact that Mr. Driscoll would be with them, been kidnapped by hateful, terrifying savages, sacrificed to a giant gorilla which had made her almost into a living doll, defended her from three tyrannosaurs at risk to his own life, and then suddenly showed up here just after, thankful wonder of wonders, Jack had shown up to rescue her?

Perhaps the best thing to do with a creature like this one was to keep things simple. "To be honest, we were both on a mountain top, escaping from-another huge animal-when there was a flash of light, we had a feeling of falling, and we just ended up in the elephant graveyard," Ann supplied.

"But ultimately, we don't really know," Jack chimed in.

"I do know that I don't like being lost," Ann quietly said.

"From what you just told me, I suspect that some sort of accidental magic was involved," Indlovu stated, nodding. "But that is a matter for the future. What matters now is the present, and I can see that not only are you lost Jack and Ann, you both must be very hungry, thirsty, and tired also."

_Accidental magic? What the hell? _Ann thought in groping puzzlement. Oh, she was too tired to even begin to tackle that right now. But she filed it all the same.

"You hit the nail right on the head," Jack dryly responded after briefly blinking once. "Not to sound like we have no social graces, but could you please direct us to a place where we could take care of those needs?" Ann couldn't have agreed more.

"Certainly I can lead you to one," came Indlovu's response. "Just follow me." Suddenly, the bull hesitated, and began gently rocking back and forth in indecision. "Come to think of it though, I can see you humans are just in such a bad way you might not be able to cover the distance on foot. Plus, you both are very weary and worse, smell of blood"-at this Ann self-consciously looked at her abraded, scratched, oozing feet-"which would make it too easy for carnivores to have their way with you, and I hate to think of that happening.'

"So" the elephant proposed, "how about if old Indlovu does something he's never done before? How would you like to be my passengers for a while?"

"That would be wonderful!" Ann cried, excited at such an enchanting idea. Imagine, riding on elephant back like an Indian prince!

"I have no problem at all with that plan," Jack agreed, and she swore she could briefly see the same boyish glint of adventure even in his now deathly pale, sunken face.

"Then, just let me place you on my back, and I'll bring you to this beautiful stream I know about. There are lots of fruiting trees there right now, and the water is clear and sweet, so you'll enjoy yourselves," Indlovu stated.

Ann was going to go first, but Jack stopped her, saying "Ann, let him pick me up first. That way, if something goes wrong, it'll be me who gets hurt, and not you." _How gallant and gentlemanly you are Jack, _she thought with pleasure.

Wrapping his trunk gently but firmly under Jack's shoulders, the elephant picked him up in one smooth, fluid motion, and placed him on his broad back. "Get a good hold and keep your balance," Indlovu advised.

"How is the weather up there Mr. Driscoll?" Ann playfully asked from 11 feet below.

"Just great! You can't see the whole world from here, but quite a bit of it, and the whole thing makes me feel pretty important too. Sure is a lot more impressive than a taxi," he said, grinning as he ran his fingers through a head of black hair. "But now if I'm going to play the great prince, it would be a crime for my princess to remain on her own two feet. Keen to travel in style Ann?"

"Most definitely," she said with a laugh. Warm and muscular, Indlovu's trunk then gripped her around the armpits, and she again felt the odd feeling of being propelled through the air by something with a strength beyond her understanding before feeling the rubbery creased dusty skin underneath her and sat in front of Jack, her legs clamped against the elephant's neck.

Like the elephant's trunk had, she felt the reassuring sensation of Jack's arms curving under her shoulders, and she allowed him to pull her to himself, lightly nuzzling her hair with his big nose. "I'm so thankful that I have you safe again," he told her in a tired, yet triumphant voice.

"And I'm thankful that you came, risked everything to rescue me," Ann gratefully said in return.

There was so much more that needed, demanded to be said. But, being so terribly tired in every way, Jack and Ann both resigned themselves to lightly, warily dozing in a half asleep state, leaning against each other for support and keeping their legs clamped around Indlovu's thick neck. They stayed like this for maybe fifteen minutes as the elephant walked, feeling the sun on their bodies and nudging the other when they began to go limp. Ann did the great majority of the nudging.

Then, at last, she felt leafy branches swiping against her smooth legs, heard flowing, rushing water, and their elephant mount calmly told them "We've arrived." Sitting upright, she and Jack saw that they were in a forest lining a river, the dappled sunlight shining through the leaves. And what a river it was! Clearly spring-fed, it was as clear as glass, jumping and rushing and burbling over the rocks as tilapia, catfish, killifish, and frogs could be seen swimming over the bottom. It was like the fish were encased in crystal.

Knowing what they wanted, Indlovu reached back to wrap his trunk around Ann's torso, lifting her up and putting her down on the soft leaf litter. He did the same with Jack then, who appreciatively patted the bull's right tusk before joining her. Ann didn't hesitate.

She didn't care if the water hadn't been treated, or that it was extremely unladylike to act in such a manner. She cupped water in her palms again and again as she kneeled in her slip at the river's edge, drinking pints of it like she had never had water in her life. She'd never had water that tasted so good and was so welcome!

As Indlovu used his trunk to drink himself several yards away, Jack joined her in sucking down water with the same enthusiastic abandon, occasionally looking out over the water before scooping up more. "Just checking for crocodiles," he explained offhandedly. The sheer force of the refreshment the water provided practically made Ann weep.

When they finally had enough water, she decided to look a bit more civilized, and washed her face and head in the cool water. "Good idea," Jack said, "because I sure look even worse." As he tossed water onto his thick black hair, causing it to go limp and droop, Ann was dismayed to see a fair amount of clotted gore work its way out from his lacerated scalp. _Oh Christ above, poor Jack! _ When the elephant said that they both smelt of blood, he wasn't lying.

"Jack, you're hurt," she said in a tone of sympathetic distress. Looking at the results being swept downstream, Jack hissed in disgust at the sight, then visibly winced when he touched the back of his head. "It's all right Ann, I'll be fine. It's just a flesh wound. And it's better to deal with it now than have the smell go announce to the lions that I'm easy prey," he said as he continued working his fingers through his scalp.

At that point, Ann felt her stomach twist in that feeling of hunger, something she'd been all too used to back in New York. "Would you like me to lead you to some food now?" Indlovu offered.

"Yes, we'd really appreciate that," Ann replied. _Oh, food…_

"Follow me then," the elephant said. "It's not very far to go."

Only several hundred yards away, their pachyderm guide-_strange to think of any wild animal that way_-Ann considered, led them to a large shrub about 14 feet tall. On its branches were large, fist-sized fruits in rinds that looked and felt like dead oak leaves in winter. "These," Indlovu told them, gesturing with his trunk, "are wild custard apples. They are very good and sweet to eat, and you'll enjoy them."

As disgusting as it was, Ann Darrow couldn't help but feel saliva pooling in her lower jaw.

A tasty fruit lunch was served.

Plucking one of the custard apples off the bush, she peeled and discarded the rind, letting it drop to the ground. The first bite proved that the fruit was quite worthy of its name. With a soft consistency to its flesh, the fruit tasted much like an apricot, with just a bit of pineapple rolled in.

She tried to remind herself that she was a modest, respectable lady, and a lady should always conduct herself with at least a minimum of decorum. She wasn't a gluttony-crazed beast after all. Oh, to hell with it.

Ann gave up to the urges, and flung herself on the bush. For the next several minutes, all she knew and all that mattered was plucking, peeling, biting, tearing, chewing, swallowing, of food filling her empty, desperate body.

She hadn't eaten for the past twenty-four hours, and it showed. Dimly, she was aware of Jack too, with a focus and ravenousness he would've never dared show around his colleagues in theater, peeling off rinds and bolting down bites of fruit with equal speed.

Soon, both of them had eaten all the custard apples that were ripe enough to consume. And Ann still wanted more. She knew Jack did too.

Turning back to the browsing Indlovu, she asked of the elephant, "Is there some more fruit we can eat? I mean, we're _really_ starved and need more."

"I know just the place," Indlovu answered with an accommodating smile, and they followed him another several hundred yards to a huge tree.

This one had lots of small, bare branches on it, each laden with orange and yellow fruits. "Fig tree," Jack said thoughtfully.

"Correct," Indlovu said. "These are sycamore figs, and they taste quite good too. The redder they are, the riper and sweeter." Once again, but this time with the elephant's help as a harvester, Jack and Ann took care of the rest of their hunger with the ripe figs. They weren't as sweet as the cultivated figs Ann had tasted before back in New York, but were still quite good.

Several minutes later, Ann contentedly laid back against the fig tree's trunk, controlled a rising burp in as ladylike a fashion as possible, smoothly wiped off her lips with the back of her hand, and yawned, finally full of delectable wild fruit. Jack voiced her sentiments, sighing before saying, " Ahhh. Good grief, I badly needed that."

"Me too," she agreed with another yawn.

At this point, Indlovu gave another deep belly rumble, catching their attention. "Jack and Ann, do you feel refreshed and recovered now?"

"Yes we do," Jack replied, "thanks in no small part to you."

The elephant seemed to mull something over for a few seconds, and then told them "Glad to hear that. And now I must leave the two of you to your own recognizance."

The words shocked Ann right out of her blissful, tranquil state. "WHAT?" she cried. "Indlovu, you can't just abandon us!" she said with shock.

"We don't even know where we are, and we still need you to help us as a guide," Jack added in bemusement.

"I am sorry, but I can't take care of two humans forever," the elephant regretfully told them. A crushing, familiar mantra came to Ann's mind. _Good things never last, and everyone goes away, _she thought as the bull's words sunk in.

"Why not damnit!" Jack desperately argued. "Was it something we did, or are we just too 'different' to fully accept? Do you not like humans?"

"That is not it at all," Indlovu said with mild irritation. "Humans, I travel over this land for much of the day, and deep into the night. My legs take steps that are longer than yours, and I don't need as much sleep as you both do. You'd fall behind quickly, no matter how hard you tried to keep up."

"Well," Ann countered, "then just let us ride on your back like we did when you brought us here."

"A very good idea Ann, but you still can't go with me. You'd be able to accompany me on my travels-but would you be able to eat my food?"

"What do you mean by that?" Jack asked. "Surely we can both eat any fruits or nuts that you would also eat."

"Certainly," Indlovu replied. "But I also eat quite a lot of grass, leaves, bark, bushes and twigs. I got a good look at your teeth as you ate, and I have heard other things about what humans eat for food. There is no way you could stay alive on most of my diet. You would starve to death Jack and Ann, in what to me is great plenty."

_A nice paradox there, _Ann grimly thought. _Of course, everyone spouts the reasons before they betray and abandon you girl, _she mentally added.

"Finally," the bull softly told them, "there is a reason, a deep one, that just has to do with my nature. I am a male you see, and it is simply our destiny as bulls to live alone. We aren't used to, nor even know _how _to shepherd and look out for others. That is a cow's job, not mine. But the worst part for you two would be when I underwent musth."

"What is that?" Jack asked. Indlovu said matter-of-factly, "It is a state we bulls go into where glands between our eyes and ears just stream a musky fluid, and we become very, _very _aggressive. Why I don't know, but I always want to just kill another bull and attack other creatures if they encounter me."

At that disturbing comment, Ann and Jack said nothing, and just gave each other wary that's-more-information-than-I-wanted glances. _Nice, he turns psychotic for a period what, once a year?_

"Therefore, I would be a danger to the two of you, and it would do you no good to trail me. Besides, I'm sure you'd both prefer seeing your old homes again in New York-wherever that strange land is-than having to roam around with the likes of myself. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that I was able to help you Jack and Ann, and you're both very likable" at this Ann blushed-"but I hope you understand why I cannot look after you forever"

"I don't like it at all, but I suppose I understand," Ann answered disappointedly.

"Well if you're going to walk out on us pal, you should at least tell us another place where we can find other help," Jack demanded.

Indlovu nodded. "Since you are in their lands, I think the best thing to do would be to speak to King Mufasa and Queen Sarabi at Pride Rock. They should be able to take you in, or at least know what to do. You'll have protection at any rate."

"Where is Pride Rock exactly?" Jack asked.

"To find it, first walk against the current of the river until you encounter a smaller one flowing into it."

"Then," Indlovu continued, "follow that one upstream to its source, which is a waterhole and a marsh. From there, you will be able to see Pride Rock close by, and then just take a game trail right to it."

"Follow it upstream," Ann repeated, putting the knowledge into her brain. "I've got it."

"In that case," the great bull elephant stated, "I'm going to go now. It was a pleasure to help the two of you Jack and Ann, and if fate wills it, I hope to see you again." He extended his trunk, embraced her in its firm, yet gentle, grasp, and then did the same thing to Jack.

Then, backing up and wheeling around, Indlovu cried, "Farewell Jack and Ann!" before loping off into the forest on his pillar-like legs, giving a loud trumpet of goodbye.

"Farewell yourself!" Jack and Ann answered back, waving and listening until he was gone.

Suddenly Ann felt very tired indeed. "Jack, I need to sleep before we go on. I feel like I'm going to drop from exhaustion," she pleaded.

"I do as well, Ann," he said with a deep yawn, and she was again aware of how truly worn-out he looked. "In fact, I think I'm 20 minutes away from passing out with a thud."

"I'll try to keep my eyes peeled for a good spot along the way," he continued, gripping the elephant bone once again as they both began to wearily walk through the dappled riverside forest, Ann feeling the slick leaf litter bouncing and giving beneath her bare feet. More staggering than walking, Jack looked like a dysentery sufferer, and a large part of Ann was terrified that if he fell, her boyfriend might never get up again, the thought slicing painfully at her heart. The pair walked in silence for a few minutes, weaving through trees, listening for danger, jumping over fallen logs, and yawning to keep themselves awake.

In a flatter area, there was a good amount of thorn trees mixing in with the forest. There were a few kopjes, or rock mounds, mixed in too. Suddenly, Jack said as he looked around, the blessed words. "Ann, I think we've found a safe spot to sleep."

Turning her head, Ann saw a small kopje about three hundred yards away abutting a dense thicket of acacia bush with sharp thorns. There was a small tunnel going into the juncture between the rocks and the bush, just big enough for someone to go into without being jabbed by the vicious spikes. She'd take it.

"Looks suitable enough," she commented, and Jack began to lead her toward it, using his shoes to remove any thorns that could stab into her bare feet as best he could.

When they arrived, he clutched his bone club lightly, and told her softly, "Just wait a moment. There could be an animal in here." But there wasn't this time, and he nodded, giving her the go-ahead to crawl into the vaulted thicket ahead of him.

A few thorns scraped her bare skin or briefly caught on her slip, but Ann had little difficulty in entering the chamber. Jack crawled in after her, the dappled light playing over his shirt and pants. They took up positions alongside each other, and without any words, kissed slowly in their own little corner of this fierce paradise, sending a thrill through her body. Then Jack laid down on the grass and leaves, stretching out to face the entrance at an angle.

_So he can better protect me if need be, _Ann thought as she lightly smiled to herself. Then she joined him, pressing her body against his back. One of his arms lightly reached back to caress a shoulder, and she felt him apply body pressure back to her. _Maybe, _she dared to dream, not caring about where she was or how she got here, _maybe, he finally will be the one, and he won't go away. _Sleep took her in that thicket then. And Ann Darrow was happy.

They slept for two or three hours. Then, Ann woke to high, chittering, squeaking cries. _Birds, _she sleepily thought. She started out to look at them, but Jack was woken then. Hearing the noises, he hissed to Ann, "No. Don't go out there unless I'm in front of you. Wait a moment."

Taking up his bone club, he crawled out into the open, warily looking out into the savanna woodland, walking a few yards away as he did so. Not knowing what was going on, Ann came out into the sunlight too, trying to focus her ears on the twittering. Jack motioned to her to stay back and stay down.

Then, the door-hinge twittering reached a fever pitch at their right, and a whole bunch of doglike creatures, colored in random huge patches of black, white, ochre, and buff, with white tail brushes came loping at them from out of the brush. Seeing the approaching canines, Ann's mind groped for their names even as she backed away. Then it hit her. She and Jack had caught the unwanted attention of a pack of Africa's painted wolves, the infamous African hunting dogs.

There were more than a dozen, and they were coming at them fast, even though they were only moving at a canter. Some briefly sprung up into the air, on all four or just their hind feet, in order to get a better look. Under other circumstances, it would've put Ann Darrow into a spin. Nothing funny here.

As the pack came within ten yards of where they were standing, Jack roared out, "Stay BACK!" brandishing the elephant bone at the dogs.

The display of force unnerved the predators. They stopped and fidgeted in indecision, muttering words she couldn't hear to each other and themselves. Then, laying back their absurdly huge Mickey Mouse ears, the pack shifted gear, and came at them again.

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**Ah ha, a cliffhanger. Will the wild dogs prove to be curious allies...or lethal enemies? As always, please review! Kong will get angry if you don't. :)**


	5. Jack's Pack

**stares at length of text Wow. This was seriously long. To tell the truth, I think this will be the longest chapter I'll ever be doing in this tale. Again, I thank my readers who've put up with this insane idea of mine and come this far. I can promise you all, Jack and Ann _will _meet Simba and Nala in the next chapter, whenI find time to do it. In addition, I'm kind of embarrased to say that I needed to do what is ironically one of my fanfiction pet peeves here, namely a long recap. However, it was vital to make the plot work. At any rate, have fun reading about how Jack and Ann meet some unexpected allies.**

**Disclaimer: Universal, Disney, and Weta own everything, except for Jack the Dog, Lotus, Havoc, Binky,White Dog, Wu (dog in Chinese), Zuri (beautiful in Swahili), Mbawa (wild dog), Moja (number one), Sadiki (faithful), Jumbe (elder), Matata (worried), Hodari (strong), and Dalia (gentle), which are all OCs. The phrase that Hodari intones is taken from "The Lioness Chant" of the Broadway version of the Lion King, and means Let us go and hunt! in Swahili.**

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_"The greatest gift in life's a friend/ __It's a daily dividend/" _From Tom and Jerry, The Movie.

_They were friendlier than a dog. _Arabic Proverb.

Senses on high alert, trying to look as tall and intimidating as possible, Jack saw in his peripheral vision that Ann was retreating back into the thorn thicket where they'd both just been sleeping as he tried to stare the dogs down.

That was good. She would have some protection at least in the thicket, and he could focus solely on dealing with the dog pack approaching him.

The size of German shepherds, the painted dogs were lanky, sleek creatures, with heavy, blunt muzzles, powerful necks, and long legs that verily proclaimed they were beasts born to run. But the feature he was most occupied with was the sharp, shearing teeth one dog displayed as it casually yawned.

He'd read before in morbid amazement what the African safari legends, Roosevelt, Selous, Hemmingway, and yes, Akeley, had to say about the beasts. How they ganged up on prey and either tore chunks out of it until the animal died, or gruesomely disemboweled it, depending on the authority you believed.

He would be _damned_ if he was going to let them do that to him, or especially Ann, and he backed up even further, trying to keep all the pack in sight. Jack felt his shoulders touch the unyielding rock of the kopje surprisingly quickly then. Instead of feeling cornered, the soft impact of granite actually made him more confident. That way, he could use his bone club to deal with the dogs one by one, without having to worry about being attacked from behind.

But there were still fifteen of them, and only one of him. Just like that nightmarish battle against gruesome death and crushing despair in the chasm, this would be a fight that no man could possibly win, just survive. And this time there would be no Jimmy or Englehorn showing up with a Tommy gun to assist-or nearly assassinate-him here. Still, for Ann's sake, just like with the loathsome natives, he knew he'd literally die trying.

"_If you beasts know what's good for you, **leave us alone**_!" he threatened, holding the bone like a baseball bat. The painted wolves were only ten feet away-and then did something unexpected. The whole pack came to a halt and intently stared at them for several long moments. Then, they suddenly began to trot off to the left, acting as if the encounter was too stimulating and astonishing to stand. Laying back their great rounded ears, they licked each other's faces, twirled their tails like propellers, licked and bumped each other's throats, and all the while made bird-like twitters and squeals.

Now they were talking among themselves, and Jack listened as best he could. _Strange how quickly one can become familiar with even the most incredible things,_ he warily thought as the dogs spoke among themselves.

"Wow! I never thought I'd ever see a human in my life."

"Definitely not this close."

"They look a bit like a monkey and a plucked ostrich crossed together don't they?"

"They are just the neatest-and weirdest-creatures I've ever seen!"

"Think they're looking to form a pack of their own?"

"Do you think they can communicate with us?"

The gossip was cut short when Jack felt one of the dogs, an adolescent animal, closely approaching him. Immediately, he turned and lashed out with the bone club, hitting the animal in the shoulder muscle. Giving a yelp, the young dog rolled away, got up, and ran to a safe distance, where it favored the stricken, but not seriously damaged, shoulder.

All the dogs jumped back then and looked at Jack in something much like shock. _Now I'm in for it,_ he thought. _I just went and made things even worse. _But instead, one of the older male dogs, apparently the leader, turned to face the adolescent and criticized, "See Pekuzi? We've been telling you all along something like that would happen."

A female dog then addressed Jack in an apologetic tone, saying "Sorry about our son Pekuzi spooking you like that human. We love him, and he's growing out of it, but he still has a tendency to poke his nose in places where it doesn't belong."

"Learn your lesson?" she asked the younger dog.

"Ooh..Ouch..Yes Mother." Pekuzi said meekly.

"I hope so, because next time it might be a lion," his father reprimanded.

Ann warily came out of the thicket then, the dogs turning to look at her as she sidestepped over to Jack. "I can see both of you are somewhat nervous in our presence," another female perceptively stated. "Don't worry, we won't harm you."

"I know," Ann replied, "but its just instincts that we can't help."

"Let's all lie down everyone. Show them there's nothing to fear," the lead male commanded. Fifteen forms mantled in black, buff, ochre and white lowered themselves to the grass.

And Jack did feel more at ease. Plus, instead of being wild and feral, he was starting to get the impression that these animals had the same gentle, decent, happy-go-lucky nature of domestic dogs, and probably could be trusted.

"I suppose we'd better show politeness too and introduce ourselves," Pekuzi's mother commented. "My name is Zuri. I'm the pack's alpha female."

"Pleased to meet you Zuri," Ann replied with a smile. Jack nodded in guarded agreement.

"And I'm the pack's alpha male, Jack," her mate said. _A remarkable coincidence, _the playwright wryly thought, lightly grinning at the serendipity.

"You know, that's rather funny," he told the dog, "since that's my name too." _Not to mention that I'm holding a conversation **in English** with an animal to begin with._

"Really?" the hunting dog said in amazement. "Well, who'd of thunk it? But hey, I guess that makes us like equals. We'll just have to be careful about which Jack we're talking about though," he added with a grin. "And who is your lovely consort here?"

Giving a brief blush, Ann replied, "I'm Ann Darrow. Pleasure to meet you and your friends."

"Hmm," one of the younger dogs, an almost yellow animal thoughtfully said as his eyes met Jack's, "from your size and tone of voice, not to mention the fact that you were defending her, you must be the sire of this pair."

"I suppose you could say that," Jack answered with a small grin, amused at how the dogs were employing their own little form of personification.

"And you," the dog commented as he turned to Ann, "must be his…"

"Lady," Jack brusquely interjected, having a pretty good idea what was coming next. "I don't want to _ever_ hear you use that other term about her, no matter how much you're used to it, got that?"

"Thanks Jack," a relaxing Ann said, pleased at having her honor defended, and favoring him with that enchanting soft smile.

"Well, um, okay," the dog said, somewhat taken aback and confused.

"Lady it is then," Zuri accepted.

The introductions and small talk continued. One by one, each of the other painted dogs put forth their name. There was Lotus, then Wu, Havoc, Mbawa, Moja, Binky, White Dog, Dalia, Sadiki, aged Jumbe, Jack's uncle, Matata, and Hodari.

And so it went, until all fifteen pack members had gone through the pleasantries.

"Now Jack and Ann," Dalia commented, a puzzled expression on her face, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but how did you two end up here? It's our nature to be nomads, so we've seen many strange things in our wanderings, including a few humans, but never any in your circumstances before."

_Just like that elephant Indlovu,_ Jack thought, as he decided to sit down, still holding the elephant bone in his lap. It was amazing how used he'd already become to the concept of talking to sapient English-speaking animals, yes indeed.

"You see Jack and Ann," Jack continued, "we can tell that you're both totally lost, and also that you had a pretty traumatic time of it shortly before we stumbled across you."

"To say the least," Ann said in a haunted, thoughtful tone, and Jack felt her hand take his. _You're very perceptive beasts, aren't you?_ he thought in surprise as his own enveloped hers in response. But then, all dogs were.

"However, we don't know anything about you two, what exactly happened in your recent past, or where you came from. We would like to help you as best we can, in any way that we can, but we need to hear your side of the story first."

There was a silence then, broken only by the steady _work-HARDERs_ of ring-necked doves and the chattering of mousebirds as Jack and Ann hesitantly looked into each other's eyes. Even if they were animals that would probably forget the whole thing by sunset, even if so many things had come at both of them during their time on the hellish island that he couldn't possibly make sense of it, much less sum it up in a coherent tale-_Now that's quite a paradox, _he thought, _a professional writer who can't be articulate with a story-_he suddenly so badly wanted to open the gates. He badly desired then to just let the terror, the horror, the despair, the rage, and the betrayal, all come pouring out in a sweet release.

So many times, when he'd heard Ann scream, saw some of her hair among the bones of the ape's previous victims, finding one of the islander's necklaces on the Venture, it had felt almost exactly like he'd been stabbed, and Jack had to admit that to the world. He didn't have the luxury of paper and fictional characters to act this time as an unconscious safety valve, so the voice was the next best thing.

But there would be a price. Jack didn't know exactly what horrors Ann had gone through herself as a helpless captive, except for the ones he'd witnessed or experienced himself, but he suspected her own paled in comparison to his, even being alone in that native village, with no idea what was going to happen to her or if rescue would come.

He didn't doubt for a moment that she'd be very upset on hearing what had happened to her savior, especially in the hadal pit of insects, and for a few moments deeply considered either telling the hunting dogs it was none of their beeswax or telling them safely out of Ann's earshot. They'd both gone through hell and hot water, and he didn't relish the idea of heaping even more pain and suffering on her, ever.

But if Ann didn't hear about it now, she would sooner or later anyway. He couldn't feasibly or rightly shelter her from the awful truth forever. "Ann," Jack said softly as he turned and looked into those vulnerable, haunting blue eyes, "I'll tell them my side of the story first. But I just want to warn you dear, some of what happened to the others and I will be-very tough to listen to indeed. And I admit, there were quite a few times when I thought that I'd never see you again. If you find it too disturbing, I promise that I'll stop. Think you can take it Ann?" _I hope you can sweetheart._

As he reassuringly caressed her blond hair, he could see Ann pondering. She sighed thoughtfully, responding, "After what I went through myself on that island Jack, I think I can take and accept anything. And you passed through the valley of death to me alive, so that's what's worth dwelling on, no matter how disturbing the obstacles and how close the shaves were."

Nodding, Jack hugged her in a spirit of reassuring celebration, kissing her forehead softly before turning around to face the patiently waiting dog pack. Seated, he held Ann's hand and inhaled deeply, saying "Here goes then," before telling Jack's pack and the woman he'd fought for the whole entire sordid, mind-boggling affair, right from the beginning.

He told them everything: How Carl, the man who he'd thought as a somewhat manic, but generally trustworthy friend had more or less kidnapped him. How he'd spent the voyage in a fetid lion cage as his quarters. How he'd met Ann, and with an intensity that shocked even him, against his better judgment, and despite his efforts to remain cool and aloof, he had utterly fallen for her, even writing a stage comedy for the woman he fancied. How they'd been run aground on Skull Island's jagged shores, and had soon found out why the isle was forbidden.

How when the natives had attacked and gotten a hold of Ann, he'd fought them like a tiger, until he'd felt the explosive pain of the club slamming into the back of his head, and known no more. How there had been such insane chaos that night, and in all the bedlam, still bleeding and swimmy from his head wound, Jack had found the necklace-and _known._ How he'd rallied everyone to rescue Ann after finding her gone, and desperately torn through the dispersing natives to the gate where he'd heard that ringing shriek. How Carl, in shock, had tried to explain what he'd seen, and instead of admitting defeat, Jack's resolve only became the stronger.

How the party had suffered so many losses as they'd hacked and shot their way through the jungle, first in a stampede of Brontosaurs-and at this Jack had to do some major explaining to help the dogs visualize the beasts -with huge predators that were part eagle, part leopard, and part crocodile attacking both human and dinosaur alike.

How the gorilla colossus had come to shake loose the log they'd been crossing, sending him down to the bottom to be knocked unconscious. And worst of all, how when he'd woken up, how he and the surviving party members were not alone in the chasm, with gigantic insects, spiders, and other multi-legged abominations trying to kill them in the dark.

That too, was difficult to get the dogs to comprehend-although a shocked, blanching Ann did all too well. "So you were attacked by huge spiders?" the female Havoc said in amazement. "Must've been those nasty king baboon spiders that we see moving around at night sometimes," she concluded.

"Yeah, they're like this wide," Wu said, holding his paws about eight inches apart, "and they're as creepy as can be. Dad saw one catch and kill a rat once."

_That's nothing. You don't know the HALF of it. _

"**No**." Jack empathetically said as he tried to throttle a shudder at the memory. "These beasts were as big as the boulders behind us," as he felt Ann's grip become even tighter in worry.

He continued, telling how a well-timed rescue by Englehorn had saved them, how he'd valiantly pressed on alone, undergoing the arduous climb up the crumbling mountain, and his near-fatal rescue of Ann from the ape. And finally, he told the dogs, as best as he could understand, of how they'd both arrived in their world.

Catching his breath, he looked around at the dogs as he heard Ann lightly sob, her body pressed against his. Despite her tears, she'd taken the news much better than he thought she would, and if anything, seemed to admire him all the more as a hero.

And he truly felt better for having gotten the whole thing off his chest. It was therapeutic, a cathartic way to deal with what had happened to him.

"I suppose I should tell you what happened to me then," Ann haltingly said, stopping to wipe tears away with the back of her hand.

"You absolutely sure you want to Ann?" Jack warily pressed. "We can always do it some other time if you please, when you're ready."

"No, I'll just get it over with," Ann bravely replied as she shook her head. And she did, telling Jack and the listening dogs what had happened to her as the ape's prisoner.

She told of how like demons coming in from Hades, a pair of natives had burst into her room during the night, killed a crewman who had tried to defend her, and their companions had dragged her on a rope through the freezing surf, choking and desperate as she struggled in vain. How she'd believed that the hideous natives surrounding her would almost certainly violate her first, then either burn or butcher her alive, and eat her flesh for a gruesome feast. How the old witch-woman slapped her face with a stinking ointment, intoning phrases to her in a malicious, almost feline, voice. How a bizarre necklace of hair, rib bones, and other things had been religiously laid around her neck, and she'd known that this was a sacrifice, the end of her road.

How the savages had begun beating log drums and poured what seemed to either be burning oil or lava over the gate as her wrists were bound to a levering bridge. And how, fighting, shrieking, straining, she had resisted as she went across the chasm. How everything had stopped then, there had been a crunching, and a gorilla the size of a house had burst out of the jungle. And without any further ado, he'd plucked her from the post in that massive hand, and run off with her his helpless captive.

How once again, she'd known with grim certainty, that she was going to die, especially when she saw the charnel house of previous victims, and the ape had shook her around. How, amazingly, he'd warmed to her, and had shown interest, then amusement, in her impromptu vaudeville routine. How when she had told him no, he'd sulked, then become angry, trying to intimidate her into more displays. And how he actually became frustrated at her and embarrassed at himself, going off and leaving her to go her own way in the jungle.

How Ann then tried to find the rescue party, but stumbled across a huge land crocodile, which she escaped after a hulking predator dinosaur took it-and then went for her next. How again, faced by an animal that was all killer instinct, far too big to fight off, outrun, or outmaneuver, and utterly emotionless, she'd known that this really _was_ it, that the island would take her at last.

And how the colossal ape, like an avenging demigod, had come and fought for her, holding her in a hand or foot as over cliffs, on a plain, down a hill, and among thick vines like mammoth trapeze artists, he'd fought a vicious, desperate, jarring, three-way fight as the tyrannosaurs snapped at her like giant crocodiles, or bit her defender to the bone. She'd felt like she'd been shoved in a running washing machine and swung around on a long rope at the same time.

How he'd given her the option of again, choosing her own path after he triumphed,respecting this frail creature as a being with thoughts and desires of her own. And how, awed, grateful, amazed, realizing that this greatest of the great apes wasn't very different from her at all, and not exactly optimistic that she'd be able to last three hours without the type of protection he had just demonstrated, she went with him.

How she'd seen the bones of his kin, and understood, with a crushing finality, that he was a solitary orphan just like her, badly needing someone, anyone, who could assuage that wrenching loneliness and maddening, despairing, isolation. How she watched him watch the sunset from the great rock outcrop that served as his lair, and saw that he could find beauty in it, even providing him with a way to express that feeling and appreciation.

Finally, Ann told both her listeners about how she'd fallen asleep in the gorilla's hand, and then, to her astonished delight and trepidation, had been woken by sensing Jack's presence and hearing her name spoken like a whisper on the wind. She'd wanted to leave without incident, but the great beast had woken up, jealously grabbing her whileshe watched in helpless horror ashe tried to kill and pummel Jack in a misguided display of protectiveness. And then, the flying, reeking, startled rat-bats had attacked, forcing the animal to put her down to ward the demons off as Jack reclaimed her and they fled. Then, they somehow ended up here.

_That explains a lot Mr. Driscoll, _Jack thought, rendered totally speechless. _Oh God, Ann, that you had to go through that…._ When Ann had given him that reluctant, inscrutable, almost accusing look when he'd arrived to get her out of there, it had confused and even shocked him for a few brief moments until the playwright had snapped back to the here and now of what he had to do.

But now he understood, a bolt of torment going through him as he tried to contemplate being in her shoes, so to speak. Englehorn had barked out that if they didn't find Ann within twenty-four hours, there would be nothing left of her to find. Well, if the ape hadn't showed up to engage the rex trio in that brutal, snapping of jaws, fever-pitched battle, there truly would've been nothing left of her to find.

And even though it had come damn near to killing him twice, the ape wasn't doing it out of hatred. Like Jack himself had been on that atrocious quest, he was just merely protecting his own, a being who had shown him in Lord knows how long, companionship, acceptance, and love.

Ann had stopped often to take sanctuary in his stalwart embrace as she'd told her tale, but like him, also seemed relieved to have bared everything to someone as she leaned against his side. He looked up from her then to gauge the pack's reaction to their harrowing, near-fatal experiences.

What Jack saw blew him away. He'd assumed that the wild dogs would be mildly disturbed by and perhaps even a little sympathetic to their respective accounts, but ultimately it wouldn't make much of an impression on them.

All the dogs to the contrary however, were feeling his and Ann's pain and terror very acutely. Some, like Lotus, Jumbe, Moja, and Binky, were actually weeping for them, tears running down the sides of their blunt muzzles. Jack had never seen any animal shed tears before.

Kindly, White Dog walked up to Ann's right side and licked her hand. Hodari was muttering with Wu something to the effect that even though wild dogs weren't and never had been man-eaters, he'd make an exception if he ever clapped eyes on Carl Denham.

Dalia shuddered with a disgusted look on her face as she contemplated the huge insects and spiders, and Zuri told her nodding, glum-looking mate that if she'd been with the filming party when they landed on the island, she would've gladly shown those natives what the wild dogs were made of. Havoc was giving Ann a piteous look with her brown eyes, obviously disturbed by the thought of someone so gentle, innocent, and sweet having to undergo such an experience. Jack agreed.

Sadiki said the most touching sentiment of all though, when he shook his head and declared, "It will never happen again. You're safe with us now, and we'll protect and look out for you the best we can."

Mbawa added, "And you should never blame yourselves for what happened on that island Jack and Ann, or let it consume you too much. Both of you have more strength and virtue than you know, and even we can see that. You've got a courage that would make any pack leader proud indeed to call you his friends."

_And if I hadn't been suckered into this escapade, I wouldn't have known that I even had it to begin with,_ Jack thought with a tinge of modesty. Nor would have he met Ann at all, someone worthy of loving and dying for. And those two denials would've been even greater tragedies than anything Shakespeare had written.

"Thank you. Those are very sweet words," Ann gently said, and he could tell her response was for the both of them.

Holding out his paw then, Jack's hunting dog namesake cut in, "And I'd personally like nothing better then if you would accept that title, and give me that wondrous honor Jack and Ann. Of all the creatures I've ever seen, and all the deeds I've ever heard done, you two are among the most noble and inspiring and heroic of them all."

At that, deeply touched, Ann again began to softly cry.

"I think this kind of bravery clearly calls for the ultimate honor," Zuri cryptically told Jack as she looked into the two pairs of human eyes. "Absolutely."

_Honor? What kind? Why? I was just doing what I had to._

"Ann, Jack, we are going to pay homage to the two of you. All you need to do is say 'I feel it,' when we carry out the ceremony's action, alright?"

Unsure, Jack shrugged his shoulders and said, "That's fine then."

"Whatever you say," Ann accepted in confusion.

"Good. Now bare your throats to us."

Ann and Jack both looked at each other in trepidation. Although the hunting dogs clearly were behaving in a very civilized, friendly manner towards them, they still had quite sharp shearing teeth, and it would be the easiest thing for the animals to slice their throats with them. Plus, Jack remembered reading once that some human tribes will cannibalize the bodies of dead warriors to absorb their power and courage. Were the dogs planning a more perverse, bloodier version of this practice?

Like he'd gallantly done so many times before, Jack willingly chose to go first for Ann. The pack leader who shared his name came up to him as he exposed his neck to those fierce teeth. Shutting his eyes, Jack Driscoll waited for the inevitable-and felt five gentle licks across the sensitive skin, accompanied by that birdlike twittering. "I lick your proud throat brave hero," the senior male intoned.

"I feel it," Jack replied, as the incredible truth and full weight of what this honor _truly meant_ hit him.

Backing away, the dog then bumped Jack's hand with his beautifully marked face before sitting down again. Zuri then did the same to a slightly nervous Ann, who hugged her in acceptance of the tribute when the deed was done.

"You are now both officially friends and honorary members of my pack," Jack proudly told them, that classic big dog grin spread on his face. "And now, let's all rest as a pack together." At this point, Lotus came over to her father, nudged him respectfully to get his attention, and whispered in one of his big bat ears. Jack got a look of dawning awareness on his canine face.

As Ann and Jack tried to figure out the reason behind it, the hunting dog said "Oh yes! You can't survive on honor after all, and they can't run anywhere as fast as we can."

Turning, Lotus calmly told them, "Jack and Ann, open your mouths."

Ann gave the wild dog a look of pure puzzlement that matched Jack's own, but acquiesced, "Well, okay," parting her jaws. _What the hell,_ Jack thought dismissively, and trustingly showed his palate to the pack.

Lotus and several other dogs came up to look closely for a few seconds, and then nodded, Jack taking that as the cue to shut it. "You're omnivores, like the baboons. I thought as much."

"Except you two humans look much more handsome and are far more polite," Pekuzi added.

"And you don't have big scary fangs or throw poo around either," Binky said in an attempt at a compliment as Ann and Jack laughed.

"I should sure hope not!" Jack shot back in mock indignation as Ann tried to mimic a baboon's surly, grave expression while chuckling at the same time.

"So this means they can eat meat then," Hodari commented to Wu.

"Sure looks like it."

"Then they haven't had a good meal for a while," Matata said worriedly.

As the truth of what their well-meaning but unnecessary plan for assistance dawned on Jack, Zuri shouted out, "Than what are we waiting for? Let's go hunting for them!"

"_Hi baba qhubekeni siyo zingela_!" Hodari said in some bizarre phrase of excitement that Jack didn't understand. Immediately, the dogs gathered around their alpha male and female, licking faces, making those hysteric yitter-chitter-chitters, and moving their tails like flinging rags before running out of the riverine forest, out of the scrub, and out onto the East African plains with Jack and Zuri in the lead.

Jack had already eaten a nice meal of wild fruit with Ann, thanks to Indlovu's efforts. He liked meat, but didn't need it to live, and would _never_ stoop to eating the stuff bloody and raw. That wasn't what a civilized man did. Nor did the playwright want to see some creature going about its life, its business, be graphically slaughtered on his and Ann's account, especially if they couldn't eat the raw flesh anyway.

So, long legs pounding over the grass, he ran like he had during the Brontosaur stampede, Ann following him as he half-panted, half-shouted, "Stop! We don't need you to hunt just for us! Stop! We've already eaten and we're fine!" But the dogs were already too caught up in the excitement, too focused and far away to hear or pay heed.

Running up over a tall ridge mantled in short Rhodes grass and dotted with clumps of Sodom apple bushes, Jack shouted again, "You don't need to do that!"

Ann desperately shouted then, "We don't eat meat that's…"

"Raw," they said in resignation together as they turned to meet each other's defeated gaze. All they could do now was watch the spectacle below them unfold.

From the ridge top, Jack could see all fifteen wild dogs approaching a mixed herd of prey animals in a loose line of dappled forms on long, lean legs. There were Thomson's gazelles, sheep-sized animals about two feet high with russet-brown coats above, ivory white bellies, and a thick black bar on the flank. With them were the larger Grant's gazelles, stockier animals with fawn coats and extensive white underparts, the males having very large, thick, strongly ridged horns.

Black streams of wildebeest were lightly cantering behind the two species herd, and could also serve as a meal. With Jack at the front, Zuri behind him, the dogs quickly trotted towards the herd in a general line, ears laid back, muzzles thrust forward, their posture in a slight stalking crouch.

Moving towards the scattered gazelles at an angle, their wary antelope targets began to run then when the pack got about a hundred yards away. The chase was on.

Watching predators doing what they do best, one can't help but not get caught up in the spine-tingling excitement of the hunt, and Jack was surprised to have it seize him as well in that intense, primitive way. _Perhaps, _a part of him felt, _it's from the time when we were the prey ourselves, and we had to run for our lives._

As they ran, the Tommies and Granti's, especially the males, started pronking, that stiff-legged gait where they would suddenly spring up into the air like a rubber ball, run some more, and do it again. It took strength and athleticism to pull off, and was a way of telling the wild dogs, "I am healthy, powerful, and agile. Someone else would make a far easier catch," although the hypnotized Jack and Ann couldn't know that.

Now, the coursing dogs had spilt up into smaller groups of a few animals, each running among the fleeing antelope or pursuing fragments of the herd at a steady speed of maybe twenty-thirty miles per hour, looking at each one as they tore over the green-gold grass.

As the dogs rushed across the plain in a way that almost seemed casual, Jack got the impression that they were just running the herd, seeing how each gazelle ran, checking their condition. They had a way of running, ears laid back, tails streaming behind them, that was beautiful to see in its almost effortless motion, lean and easy, but also chilling in its determined momentum. The killing fields of Africa are home to many formidable hunters; lions, leopards, spotted hyenas, cheetahs, caracals, martial eagles, tawny eagles, black mambas, rock pythons-but the painted dogs are the deadliest of them all.

One male Grant's gazelle was marked out, and the pack converged on him, each dog breaking off its chase. Instead of running in a relay system like he'd read about, Jack was surprised to see the dogs cutting corners instead, as the hundred and fifty pound antelope fled before them, jinking and swerving.

The ridge he was standing on was a high one, so he and Ann could see for almost two miles in the clear, heady air. They could see as the pack chased the Grant's stag across their field of vision. "Oh God Jack," Ann softly said in horrified sympathy, knowing what would come next.

As the black masses of wildebeest dispersed before him in panicked conniptions, the gazelle ran over a smaller, rock-studded ridge as Zuri closed in. The ridge thankfully helped obscure some of what happened next, but as Ann turned away to put her face in his shoulder, Jack could get good half-looks as the antelope was seized by the back of the thigh, and yanked off his feet.

Remembering all too clearly how the massive crickets had swarmed him on the island, clawing and slicing into his skin with their wicked jaws, the playwright's heart went out to the Grant's gazelle, trying in vain to get up and fight free with horn and hoof all at once as the dog pack fell upon him and tore at his hide. Then, the words of the great safari personages were proven to be brutally true as the wild dogs proved before Jack's own shocked eyes, straining and yanking like a gardner trying to pull out an especially well-anchored weed, that they _did_ open up their prey's belly and eat it alive!

He couldn't watch the sickening sight of them eating into the antelope's groin anymore-one of the crickets, the last one Jimmy had shot off, had seemed to be trying the exact same thing-and turned away too, telling Ann "Don't look." _These _were the same creatures that had offered them friendship and sympathetically listened to their stories just twenty minutes ago? _If so, I'd hate to see what the other predators around here are like._ No wonder people loathed and persecuted the creatures with a vengeance.

Stealing a glance back over his shoulder, Jack saw that the gazelle was down. Although it had seemed horribly long, the animal had actually died quickly, and very likely in deep shock. So he probably didn't feel much of any pain, which was comforting. _Just like Dr. Livingstone was in deep shock when that lion mauled him, and didn't feel any real pain until later, _Jack thought, recalling the famous explorer's encounter.

Besides, the dogs had just killed for food, nothing more, he reasoned to himself, in the only way they were equipped for. Like Ann's ape abductor, they didn't do it out of malice or for sick enjoyment, just as a matter of course, in a thoughtful gesture on his and Ann's behalf. Only man, he shamefully thought, killed for the pleasure of witnessing suffering, the demented thrill of causing pain and snuffing out a life.

_And as a fellow meat-eater, a predator yourself Mr. Driscoll, where do your sympathies really lie?_ Grudgingly, he admitted that they did veer towards the dogs, and he really had no right to condemn them for something he did too, except for the fact that the killing was done hidden away by someone else, where he didn't have to look at it and be upset.

The painted dogs were gulping down meat swiftly now, almost as if they too, found the butchery to be unbecoming and distasteful. The hideous forms of Rupell's griffon vultures were descending, landing to half-hop, half-run over the grass with obscene haste to gather in a waiting circle around the pack. A black kite swooped low at the kill, checking its rush when an irritated Moja yelled, "Get away!" leaping up to snap at the bird.

Having had their fill, the dogs, now matted with blood, came cantering back to where he and Ann were standing, bellies bulging with meat as the delighted vultures hurled themselves at the remains. Curiously, even though they'd gone out to kill for them, they weren't holding chunks of meat in their mouths. "Did it slip their minds?" Ann whispered to him.

"I don't know," Jack responded. Perhaps their greed had taken over. At any rate, they wouldn't have to go through the awkward situation of telling the dogs that they couldn't eat a bite of their offering, as nice as the act was.

He saw that the dogs were grinning proudly, excitedly now, in victory. Combined with the blood staining them, it made the dogs look almost demonic in nature. Unaccountably, it made Jack angry and dismayed again. It felt like stumbling on a sadist's torture chamber, gazing on their merriment.

Although the playwright managed to hold his tongue, he thought to himself, _That's obscene. What the hell are you guys so jubilant about? You ran down an antelope, ganged up on it, and gutted him alive. Big fat damn deal. _

Ann had stiffened in shocked horror. "Ann, what's wrong?" Dalia asked as they came up to the humans.

Self-conscious then, Jumbe said, "I think it's her first time, if you get what I mean."

"Oh."

"Be at peace Ann and Jack," Jumbe reassured them. "It may be disturbing, but again, you are our friends now, and we will never do the same thing to you. It's just our nature, and we're sorry if it alarms you."

"But the blood-how you killed it," Ann squeaked out, staring at the matted coats as Jack could nowcatch that sharp, sickly metallic scent.

"Maybe you guys had better clean yourselves," he said in a low voice that was not a suggestion.

"We will in a bit," Wu said kindly.

"First though, we need to give you your share," Zuri said. And to their disgust, she and several other dogs purged mounds of raw meat onto the grass before them. "Here's your meal."

"Oh Jesus no," Jack cried out, gagging and turning away to look at something else as his fruit meal threatened to come up his gullet in reaction to the nausea he felt washing over him. Ann didn't even make an oath, but just clamped her hand over her smooth lips, closing her blue eyes and hyperventilating as she too turned away from the repulsive gift.

The dogs were shocked, totally taken aback. "You don't like this stuff?" Havoc said in amazement, blinking.

"This is good, wholesome meat. You will enjoy it, trust us," Hodari urged.

"We killed it for you. Surely you can eat at least some," White Dog muttered in disbelief.

Jack came up to them with a several meat chunks lightly held in his front teeth, but the playwright just said "Sorry," and turned his head away in a different direction.

The look of disappointment, and shock at the human's perceived ingratitude stung badly. Pulling himself together and giving the regurgitated meat piles a sidelong look, Jack said in a mixture of shame and frank wariness, "We tried to tell you guys that we didn't eat raw meat before you took off hunting, but you all moved out of earshot too fast."

"That was a very kind action on your part," Ann added, "but we sadly can't dine on your offering."

"Aw damn," Mbawa said, kicking a rock in frustration.

"You mean to tell us we just did that for nothing?" Lotus said in stupefied dismay, gesturing at the meat mounds with her head, as Binky growled in annoyance and Zuri took on a literal hangdog expression.

Every word seeming like a traitor's dagger, Jack simply told them, "I'm afraid so. We can't eat that."

A cosmically awkward silence settled in then, disenchantment seeming to permeate the hot air. "Why not?" Sadiki interjected, looking from the meat to their eyes.

Thinking for a moment and briefly gazing at the clear blue sky, the writer candidly responded, "It's because eating raw meat is seen as gross and uncivilized where we come from for one thing. It also often has diseases or parasites that can make us extremely sick and weak."

Showing some reluctant understanding, Wu nodded his head, saying, "And if you're weak out here, you are likely to die. We know that quite well."

"Exactly," Jack said. "Finally, raw meat is more difficult for us to digest, harder for our bodies to process, than cooked meat is. So that's why we have to use fire or any heat on it first for a while before we eat."

All the dogs nodded, then sighed in resignation. He'd just let them down, albeit unwittingly, and felt guilty about it. "Guess we just leave this for the vultures then," Jack said, his big ears swept back in a crestfallen pose.

"We're very sorry," Ann said, gently touching Dalia's side.

Then an idea hit Jack, with the speed and power that an idea for a new play or an act for one would back home. The sheer simplicity of the thing made him chuckle, slapping his hand over his face in mortification. _Why_ _didn't I think of that before?_

Turning and standing up, he suddenly jogged back to the streamside forest a couple hundred yards away. Trusting her paramour's judgment, Ann followed, the dogs coming behind. Finding a dead branch on one of the trees that was low to the ground, he tensed his muscles and snapped it off.

Grinning, he told the dogs, "I think there's a way we can eat your food."

"There is?" Ann said with furrowed brows.

"Yes," he replied in affirmation.

"You remember that we showed up here in the Elephant Graveyard? Well, if you guys don't mind, we saw a lot of heat vents there. You're all fast runners, so if some of you could take this branch there and light the end on fire, we'd be very much obliged."

"And," Jack added, "Ann and I will have the fire we need to cook and eat your meat."

"That just might work," Havoc said in awe, the realization dawning on her.

"I promise you, it will work," Jack told her.

"Then let's go!" Binky said in hyper excitement.

"Remember though," Jack told his son, "there are lots of hyenas living there. So we'll need half the pack when we go there, in case we get attacked."

"Zuri," he commanded, "I want you and all the other females to stay here. Guard both the meat and our new friends. All you others come with me."

Then, Jack personally took the branch from his playwright namesake in his teeth, and with amazing swiftness, the pack's males were gone. Making good use of his time, Jack resourcefully collected more dead branches, dead grass, twigs, and slabs of bark from the trees, gathering them together in a pile out on the short grass as Ann took the opportunity to doze in the hot African sun. Fortunately, they were on the leeward side of the great ridge, so they didn't have to move far at all.

Soon enough, Jack and the other males reappeared, loping back towards them. Happily, Jack and Ann could see flickers of fire winking on the twigs and glowing on the wood as the dogs came closer.

After he'd given Ann the branch, Zuri asked her mate, "How did it go?"

"Well, we got the fire from a vent just fine, and although we did come across four or five hyenas there, the guys gave 'em what for with a set of bites to their rumps. Good thing there weren't a whole bunch though."

"Great to hear Jack," Zuri said with a smile.

Meanwhile, touching the glowing branch to the kindling in the center, Jack Driscoll, recalling what he'd learned from the summer boy's camps he'd attended as a child, blew on the dried grass. Quickly, the fire caught then sprung up.

As the wild dogs instinctively backpedaled, he laughed and grinned in elation at his accomplishment. He and Ann now had man's cornerstone, the first great tool. "You did it Jack," Ann said beaming happily, knowing that as he always had, he'd come through for her. "Resourceful as ever."

Now, going over to where the dogs had disgorged the gazelle meat, Jack shut his mind to the task, and picked up as much of the slippery meat as he could hold in both hands. Bringing it to the fire, he put it down. Piercing each chunk with an acacia thorn, he then slipped a thick twig through each hole.

Holding several of the sturdy twigs in his right hand, he sheltered his face with the left, roasting the meat in a more primordial way of cooking hot dogs. As he and Ann sat, he resolutely kept holding out the gobbets of gazelle, ignoring the sun's pounding heat and the sharp bites of the bullet-gray tsetse flies as he kept his position. The meat sizzled, sending out a pleasant aroma as it charred, and he soon forgot that a wild dog had puked it up in his craving.

_Cibi condimentum est fames,_ Jack wryly thought. Hunger is a spice for any meal indeed. Taking Latin courses all those years ago at Columbia, he'd certainly never imagined there would ever be a time when the proverb would apply so directly and immediately to him.

When he decided it was cooked plenty well, he removed the now blackened twigs. After giving them time to cool, he plucked one hot chunk off and tentatively bit into it. His green eyes widened, and he looked down his big nose at the morsel-but not in disgust. All things considering, it hadn't turned out half bad at all, and actually tasted quite good. "Not bad at all for a first try," he commented.

"Your verdict is encouraging, Mr. Driscoll," Ann interjected, taking a skewered lump herself. Taking a bite herself and chewing slowly, Jack watched an expression of startled pleasure bloom on her face. She was enjoying it too. "You're not a bad cook Jack," she smiled.

Smiling back, Jack locked eyes with her as he raised another chunk of charred, but wonderfully gamy gazelle to his lips. It tasted quite good indeed. Even better, although he hadn't killed it, in his own way, he had provided for his beauty.

* * *

Having had his fill of Grant's flesh, Jack flicked his hand at another tsetse that had just bitten him on the shoulder, pinning it and briefly regarding its hot, gleaming red compound eyes before finishing it with his knuckles. He and Ann had eaten about half of the meat the dogs had brought them, resulting in him having to roast a few more batches of meat, as well as finding more thick twigs when the others had burned up. All the while, their new companions had watched this weird culinary practice in wary fascination.

The sun was pounding down like a sledgehammer now. Heat haze throbbed on the horizon like molten glass, sending mirages to cover the far plains and hills. All the other animals were lying up in the shade of trees or termite mounds, standing or lying down on high places or any other sites where they could catch the cool breeze, gathered around water, or just standing still in the open, conserving energy as they stood like statues, as if lost in some profound reverie.

It felt like a blast furnace, and the fire's heat hadn't helped either. Despite the dry heat, Jack and Ann were trickling sweat like mad now, just as they had on Skull Island. Most of the wild dogs had drifted off to the woodland's shade, but a few stayed with them, although they were panting madly and fidgeting in discomfort.

So naturally, Jack got to his feet as Ann rose as well. "Ah, I could use some water in the worst way. Let's get into the shade," he commented. The remaining three dogs followed them gratefully. Too hot to want to talk more, Jack entered the blissfully cool shade of the forest, going right to the crystal stream with Ann jogging right behind him.

Immediately, he drank deep of the refreshing water with her alongside. The dogs lapped up their balance as well. Not feeling satisfied quite yet, Jack stripped off his shoes and socks. Rolling up his pant legs, he led a ready and willing Ann over the smooth gray hardness of the rounded pebbles until the water was knee deep on her.

For a few minutes, they both stood, feeling the cold flow into their bodies like a tonic. Then, having had enough, Ann lightly kissed him and walked out of the water, turning to comment, "I feel so sleepy again. Time for a siesta I think."

Having had only a few hours of sleep over the past two days, and feeling drowsy from the energy-rich, filling meat, Jack heartily agreed. "I think I'll take you up on that."

Picking out a large, dense, shady thicket of croton bush, he laid down on his back. The action sent nails, matches, of red discomfort into his cuts and scracthes, but he managed to stoically endure it, all in the name of giving his dame a soft surface to put her head. Coming to join him, Ann laid down herself, affectionately laying her head on his abdomen as she blissfully stretched out. For a while, Jack just ran his fingers slowly through her curly blond hair, looking at her with a soft, protective gaze.

So many times, a terrible death had come leaping at the two of them, and by all rights, they should've been dead as dingbats by now. But even though he didn't, couldn't, and probably would never know or understand how they'd ended up here, they were off that terrible island, together again. And for the moment, they could call themselves safe. That was what counted.

Jack caressed Ann's silky cheek one more time, a flood of emotions leaping from the skin to his soul. He didn't know if he'd have to end up adopting a Tarzan lifestyle out here, like in Edgar's pulp novels. But as repellant as their ways of killing were, the hunting dogs seemed quite willing to fill the role of the apes for them, hunting, guiding, protecting, comforting, or simply just being there.

For his part, even if Jack belonged more to the realm of the scholar than the safari hunter, a creature totally alien to the African bush, just like Lord Greystoke, he would do whatever was needed, even if it meant laying down his life, to protect and provide for his Jane.

Feeling the bruises peppering his body, but too worn out to care, the playwright laid his head back then, his last sensation before drifting off the warm pressure of Ann's head pillowed in his belly. In a strange, yet touching tableau, they slept through the heat of the afternoon in that tender position, guarded by a pack of painted dogs that wouldn't let predators come near.

* * *

Author's notes: Normally, African painted dogs hunt during the cool of the early morning or around dusk, as well as at night sometimes if the moon is bright enough. I had to fudge a bit here though. It is also true that they are remarkably laid back and tolerant in the presence of humans, and have never been known to act hostile towards people-of course, we haven't reciprocated in kind. Changing the subject, I'm pleased to see that people are warming up to this story. If you dear reader am having as much fun reading this crossover as I am writing it, then I can call it a before, please review!


	6. Terrors and Tales

**Well folks, after long last I return bearing another chapter! I originally planned for this one to be much longer. However, I've been struggling sometimes with that dreaded demon called Writer's Block, and have decided that this was plenty good for a Chapter 6.**

**Also, I apologize for not having actually reached the canon part and characters of the Lion King yet to my readers. I promise though, that we _will_ get there shortly, and that it'll be quite worth the wait.**

**Finally, I just want to express how grateful I am to my reviewers and readers who've joined me on this fantastic trip.**

**RebeccaAnn:** I'm so happy to hear you enjoy my detailed atmosphere and vocabulary! It is my personal belief that any story worth its salt should be at least somewhat educating as well as entertaining too. I'm also pleased that you feel I'm doing a good job with Jack and Ann's "voices" especially the latter. I am way too paranoid about screwing her up for my own good, I know.

**marinawings: **Thanks so much for your nice review! I'm glad you find this story so absorbing, and especially that you're so touched by Ann and Jack's interaction. It's a struggle to balance both the romance and the adventure, so it's just great to hear that.

* * *

_"Animals are such agreeable friends..." _George Eliot 

On the orchard wall I used to sprawl

In the blazing heat of the day;

Half asleep and half awake,

while the birds went twittering by...

And over the grass would seem to pass

' Neath the deep dark blue of the sky,

Something much better than words between me,

And Nicholas Nye. **Walter de la Mare**, _Nicholas Nye._

In the croton thicket under the dappled shade of the great fig trees, sleek, soft stomach muscles acting as her pillow, she dreamt of green. Sometimes it was in a good way, sometimes in a bad. Ann dreamt of Jack's stunning, softly humorous eyes, the color and shine of emeralds, ones she could easily lose herself in.

She dreamt of the island's unforgiving, savagely primordial jungle, where death waited behind those screens of undergrowth and lurked behind logs covered with brilliant mosses at every turn. She dreamt of the land crocodile's muted green form, how its eyes and its satanic, almost amused grin had been like the expression of an ogre contemplating a fresh victim, both of them knowing what would happen next.

She dreamt of green and black and silver and midnight blue, all swirling together in a petrifying, streaky, crazy blur as the ape rushed through the jungle. Oddly, it was remarkably similar to when Greg Manion, one of her previous lovers, would take her riding on one of his horses at his country home in upstate New York, the fences, fields, trees, and the Hudson River all rushing by as she sat in front of him, feeling the joyous animal power beneath her.

It had been a sublimely happy occasion, one that as a mere vaudeville actress-and she was all too aware that many outsiders regarded people in her profession as just glorified clowns or chorus girls- she could never have dreamed of experiencing. And she remembered that verdant summertime green too.

She dreamt of the open spaces of green star and Rhodes grass she and Jack had been traversing for the past few hours, and the cool, leafy green of the acacia woodlands and thickets, feeling so relieved and safe to have him with her again. And as if going full circle, she dreamt of those green eyes again, looking into hers as he'd said, "…I'll always do my damnedest to keep you safe. Until my last drop of blood is shed, if need be."

In her sleep, she smiled.

Dreams are how the subconscious mind processes and sorts through a day's sensory experiences, trying to make rhyme or reason out of them. The first two times she'd been able to sleep, first in the ape's gentle hand, and then in the thicket where they'd met the dogs, Ann had been every bit as exhausted psychologically as she had been physically, dreams too much of a luxury for her shocked psyche.

But now for better or worse, that psyche was replaying those shocks, like the sheet in one of those automatic pianos, and now the worst memory of green came, hitting her like a train. It was the picture of the tyrannosaurs, jaws agape and snapping, green jungle rushing by in crazily quilted blurs as the ape king desperately held them off-

She would've woken herself up with a bloodcurdling shriek then, the dream so real it felt like it was happening again, right now. But ironically, it was Jack who tossed her back into reality with a nightmare of his own.

As Ann crossed from the dream world into the real one, she realized in hazy confusion that Jack had just _lurched_ right underneath her, giving a strangled cry of "Oh GOD! Get them away!"

Resting and sleeping hunting dogs got up and backed away in startled fear, and Ann was dimly aware of a whole host of birds, all shapes and colors, bursting into panicked flight as Jack bowed his spine against the ground, rolled over onto his side, and kicked out with his legs together like a rabbit caught in a snare.

Grabbing his broad hands as they flew out-and Ann knew with a terrible, sick knowledge what they were almost certainly trying to defend against-she gently pressed them together as Jack's eyes flew open then, their expression desperate and wild. He had the screaming meemies.

For a fleeting few instants, she had to bear down as Jack's lanky frame struggled against her delicate one, unknowingly verbalizing the stare he was giving her with a haunted, "Dead eyes."

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the look of frantic horror left Jack's eyes, the grass-green orbs reverting to a look of mystified confusion as Ann stroked his hair, calmingly whispering, "Shhh. It's all right Jack. I'm here. You're all right now. They aren't here anymore. Just me and the dogs."

"Dogs?" Jack said in pure puzzlement, raising himself up on an elbow to look around at the pack of painted dogs silently sitting in a circle where they had retreated. Despite the obvious looks of concern on their faces, they'd stayed put, wisely and considerately recognizing that rushing forward would just frighten the writer even more, and that Ann would know best how to deal with it.

And they were correct.

His memory returning then, Jack muttered, "Oh yeah, you guys. That's right."

Still sensing it wasn't an appropriate time to talk, Jack and the rest of his dog family just nodded and gave reassuring, open-mouthed doggy grins.

Running her soft hand along his brow, Ann quietly asked Jack in the meantime, "It was the pit, wasn't it? Oh Jack, I'm sorry."

Giving her a resigned look, Jack nodded. "I dreamed of their eyes looking into my own, their legs everywhere. But what was really horrible…" He trailed off, avoiding her gaze.

"What Jack? You can tell me. Let it out. I want you to." Her mother after all, had told her that no good ever came of bottling things up, even if your heart was in the right place.

"I dreamed of how Lumpy died, and those crickets working me over, and that was horrible enough…but instead of those slug abominations killing _him_, they were eating on you. And that was what I truly couldn't stand," he finished, a soft, quavering note of horror to his voice as he ran the back of one hand along her cheek and lower jaw.

"Well, if it's any consolation, I was having a nightmare too you know Jack-about the Tyrannosaurus-when yours woke me." The memory shot through her head like a bullet, and she knew that she was visibly blanching.

As Mother had said once to help keep Ann and her sisters from investigating a man's limp form in the winter street, death was the most private and intimate experience of a person's life, and she hadn't been looking forward at all to a death as brutal and intimate as being devoured by a dinosaur.

Thank God the ape had come.

_We're both going to need a lot of post-nightmare support after those horrors_, a rueful, pragmatic part of her brain commented.

"I suppose that proves great minds like ours truly do think and even dream alike, huh?" Jack remarked with a sly grin, which Ann knew was meant every bit as much to make his terrified tension subside as it was for hers. "Plus," he added, looking at his Rolex Oyster-which in a miraculous irony was still functioning nicely-"looks like it's a quarter past three at the moment, so perhaps it's erroneous to call it a nightmare."

At this, they both laughed, briefly taking Ann's mind off the idea of Jack in that chamber of horrors.

"But we're out of there now Ann, and back in the real world, where we're safe," he gently dismissed, raising his bruise-mottled body of the grass to a seating position, lightly taking Ann's hands and holding them as they briefly touched lips, the ecstatic contact successfully both calming and distracting them from the terror of their respective nightmares.

Separating, Jack smiled at her, a tender warmth entering his eyes as he added, "Besides, you know what? It actually turned out to be a good dream for me."

_A dream where you saw me get killed by giant slug beasts and were swarmed by cat-sized insects was a GOOD one for you Jack? Have you gone daft,_ Ann thought, shocked and bemused. _You screamed to wake the dead._

"How on God's green earth could that possibly be good Jack!"

"Because," he solemnly replied, "I was able to escape from it by waking. And especially," he said as he reached out and caressed her shoulder, "since I woke up to find you, the most beautiful, angelic woman I've ever known beside me."

_And you are absolutely beautiful too Jack_.

Touched deeply, Ann melted at that, and she could only smile, bending forward to initiate a longer, more passion-filled kiss this time, acting like a balm for her unsettled heart.

Necking, they called it, and ordinarily, Ann would've been both mortified and disturbed by the idea, especially with such a prominent social figure like Jack Driscoll. But this time, she didn't mind in the least, as the wine of ardor flowed through her veins.

It drowned everything, the fear, the tension, the terrible uncertainty about the future, and her guilt about how so many others had bled and died on her behalf.

In the background, a moved Binky said "Awww," only to be silenced by his father sternly saying, "This is a private moment between them. Be quiet."

The humans couldn't have cared less about the interruption however, and when they did part, Jack, despite the obvious discomfort from his livid bruises, leant back, just regarding her fondly with a thin smile for a minute before gently saying, "You're pretty good at paying cash, you know that doll?"

_Nice to hear I'm a great kisser, especially since I haven't done very much of it at all._

Giving her chiming laugh, Ann then responded, "Me a doll? Here in these circumstances?" gesturing at her bleeding feet, and filthy, embarrassingly sheer slip-thank the Lord she was only with a man who she knew wouldn't care and animals who couldn't possibly comprehend nakedness as being banal-"What an idea Jack Driscoll!" she grinned.

"Well, let's just say that appearances can be deceiving," Jack instantly replied, gesturing outward with his palms up. "Plus, after God knows how many hours of chasing after a Brobdinagian gorilla, running from dinosaurs, and fighting everything from cannibals to colossal crickets, I don't exactly look like a prize stallion myself," he smirked, pointing to the oozing wound on his shoulder, then his grimy undershirt, to get the point across.

This time, everyone, even the painted dogs in their _yitter-chitter-chitters_, broke out into chuckles.

When things settled down, Jack unsteadily got to his feet, and turned on his heels, walking out of the thicket and towards the right.

Puzzled, her euphoria and sense of delighted contentment gave way to apprehension as Jack unsteadily walked towards another thicket, Havoc, Dalia, and Sadiki rising to step aside and let him pass.

_No, don't leave Jack, what are you doing,_ an emotional response pleaded in her.

Sensing her mood, Jack turned around, modestly saying, "It's alright Ann. I just need to go iron my shoelaces, that's all," finishing with a thin smile.

Briefly confused, Ann thought, _but your shoes don't have any laces Jack-oh, I see. I'll be ladylike and look away._

On his quick return, some of the pack rose to curiously sniff the strange new ammoniac scent, while finally feeling recharged, Ann realized she was getting somewhat bored now. "Jack," she questioned as he sat down again, "would you like to go for a walk with me for a bit? It's nice and cool under the trees, and there's just dead leaves and mud around, so my feet will be alright."

As if stupefied, he looked down his aquiline nose at her feet, terribly abraded, cut, and bleeding after her ordeal on Skull Island, an expression on his features as if he was seeing them for the first time. A look of sympathetic regret entering his soulful eyes, he softly said to both himself and her, "You poor thing Ann. We've got to wash and make some kind of shoe or sandal for them."

Coming back to her real question, he breathed in and shook his head, black bangs flopping as he regretfully replied, "Sorry Ann, but I think I'll have to take a raincheck on that. I don't feel in any shape for walking, and with your feet looking like that, you probably shouldn't be doing it either if you don't have to," he said matter-of-factly.

"I wish I could though," he added, yawning with a gentle shrug. "I hope you understand."

A little flash of disappointment shot through Ann, but it soon gave way to reluctant understanding, which she expressed with a soft nod. Heck, her whole body hurt and ached all over itself.

The terrible burning in her slender feet-Good blessed God, they would just be covered with scars by the time this was over-, the dull, sore pain from her bruises, and the pain radiating outwards from myriad bites where both the gigantic mosquitoes of Skull Island and the local tsetse flies had rammed their stiletto mouthparts into her, seeking their pint of blood, completely filled a sector of her brain now. To tell the truth, her disassociation skills, honed to perfection as part of the actor's lifestyle, were more or less the only thing allowing her mind to block out that insistent throbbing, although granted, it was diminishing on its own.

And even if she was no nurse, she could see perfectly well that Jack was three times worse off than she was, not to mention that he seriously needed to catch up on as much sleep as possible after his frantic quest, now that the panic and adrenaline had worn off.

"Yes, let him sleep for a while more Ann," Lotus wisely interjected. "The best thing you can do after a battering like you two had is just to rest."

"I know that," Ann said. "I sure do Jack," she responded with a smile, " You need all the shut-eye you can, and I'll just find another way to occupy myself."

His green eyes widened in mock surprise and he compressed his lips then. But the ruse of disbelief couldn't be maintained any longer, and her love gave that alluring Cheshire Cat grin before responding with, "Oh, are you actually giving me _permission_ to have additional sleep time Miss Darrow? How gracious of you Teacher."

"Well, I'm no Lady Macbeth," she chuckled out, knowing Jack would enjoy the Shakespeare reference.

"No," he said, stretching languidly out again with a deep yawn, "You're my Juliet instead," giving her a look of soft protective fondness. Then he said the profoundly sweet and thrilling words again, "Yes, my Juliet. My Desmonda. My Ann," before those exhausted eyes closed again, and his lean body went still in sleep.

_My._ One little word, but it had filled Ann Darrow's heart and soul with grateful amazement. It was the first time he'd ever referred to her in the possessive. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears, and feel the warmth in her forehead, as the rush of something sweet, pure, and pleasurably hot washed over, around, and through her. It didn't compare to that ecstatic, almost earth-shattering first kiss they'd shared on the Venture, but it was a close second.

Looking at the man's bronzed body, accented by the dappled light-even filthy and battered, she still thought it was the most stunning figure she'd ever clapped eyes on-part of a line Juliet said came unbidden to her, blossoming like the loveliest, and yet most unexpected, flower.

…_And I'll follow you as my husband anywhere._

Huh? Where in Christ's name did that just come from? As contenting and appealing as it was, the possibility of _her_ taking the hand of Jack Driscoll, eminent writer of plays, upper-crust citizen,-hypothetically assuming of course, that they actually found their way out of the middle of nowhere, survived long enough to encounter friendly help, and returned to the docks of Manhattan alive-was about as realistic as her suddenly being able to fly.

Yes, that was sure a new idea, an ultimate step as small, and yet as huge, as when she'd taken that first wary step onto the Venture's gangplank, unknowingly taking a mad, wild dash into atrocious terror, desperation, and pain, physical as well as psychological. What she'd delightedly thought a golden opportunity, the thrill of a lifetime, had turned out to be a bitter, poisonous pill, like the crocodile that drew you close with platitudes and pitiful tears-then whipped around and savaged you.

As much as her mother would've been horrified at the idea of her Ann daring to even think such a thing, her eyes narrowed and lips tightened in sudden wrath as she engaged in some distinctly unladylike mental phrases.

_That goddamned liar._ She should've figured it out far earlier from the looks in the crewmen's eyes and their tense demeanor, even Englehorn, who would probably go up to an escaped lion and drag it back by the ear like a bratty child.

Child. Mother… That got her mind on a new, but related tangent. Once as a girl, only ten years old but already far too wise in the hard, pitilessly indifferent way of the world, she'd asked her mother in distress why they could never get a break, why things came that _looked_ so hopeful and promising-but it invariably turned out to just be more hardship veiled by attractive trappings.

After a tight, long hug, Melissa had taken her daughter up onto her lap, despite her weight, and tiredly, sadly told her, "I know how you feel honey. There are some people out there who walk a golden path, leaping over obstacles like they were logs, and getting close to everything their heart desires.

But then there's also people like us, who have to sweat and bleed, scrabble and push ourselves to the limit. I wish that we didn't."

"It's not fair," Ann had answered despondently, starting to cry in helpless frustration. "I mean, how those people have everything they want, and all the luck too. It's like God hates us or something, and we're headed for trouble right from the start."

"Don't say that Annie," Melissa had said with a stern, yet soft voice. "God doesn't hate you, me, or your sisters for a moment. He loves us, because we're his children, and loves the downtrodden most of all."

"I sure know how you feel though baby," Mother had continued, giving a despairing sigh. "You don't get rich in vaudeville to be honest, and I don't blame you for thinking that as soon as we can start walking, someone or something, or just the whims of Fate, is out to get us."

Well, fate sure had had a lot of fun being cruel to Ann then. _I'm no child of God, _she thought with a twinge of bitterness. _I'm not a child of anybody, Mother least of all._

When she'd been thirteen, Melissa had simply left one fall day, leaving Ann and her two older sisters to desperately fend for themselves, no one to rely on but each other. The hideous wrench had been unbearable. It seemed to cause the earth to lurch from its path.

A few months later, Ann had found out that her mother had actually abandoned her not out of selfishness, but out of selfless love. Poor Melissa had, unknowingly to her daughter, caught a terrible case of typhus. Knowing that her condition was deteriorating swiftly, and not wanting to have to expose her children to either her own death or the ravages of the germ itself, she'd done what made the most logical sense to her. And like a mortally wounded animal, she'd just gotten up and left their apartment, crawling off to die in a distant infirmary.

But the damage had been done by then. That was a wound that had never completely healed, leaving an unseen, but ugly, jagged red scar where it had.

The feeling of a furry blunt muzzle nosing under her arm, and another touching her back interrupted her darkening mood then. Startled out of her own little world, Ann turned to see Wu looking into her eyes, big radar-dish ears at half-mast with Zuri, Havoc, Moja, Binky, Jumbe, Jack, and Mbawa all standing behind him, the dappled coats blending with the patches of sunlight.

"Having troubled thoughts Ann?" Wu questioned softly.

"Unfortunately, I am," Ann said with a sigh, lightly running her fingers through her hair. "Comes of boredom and having too much time to dwell on things, I suppose. With Jack asleep, there's not much else to do."

"Ah, but you have plenty of things you can do right here and now during that time," Havoc replied, giving a knowing smile. Gesturing to the rest of the pack, all of them awake and gathered around now, she pointed out "You always can do things with us."

_That's true_, Ann thought, nodding thoughtfully. Ann had always been good at forming relationships with others, not just in a friendly way, but also in making an impromptu family. She'd done it with her fellow performers at the Lyric Theater, she'd done it with the movie crew and the uncouth, coarse, but good-hearted crewmen on the Venture, and against her wildest hopes, had even done it with the massive ape to a degree. And she'd always been quite skilled at connecting with animals.

Everybody back at the theater had known that the trained dogs, the ponies, the cats, the rabbits and doves and ducks the magicians and entertainers used in their acts all just absolutely loved Ann, greeting her in their own respective way whenever she came by. Zoo animals, perhaps sensing her respectful, gentle nature, would often get up from where they were hiding or stop their pacing to approach the bars and make eye contact.

The most successful way to bond with others of course was for both parties to mutually participate in a pleasurable activity or conversation together.

_Fine, I'm sure that won't be much of a problem._

Racking her brains briefly for something she and the painted dogs could do together, something that wouldn't wake Jack up or cause him to find her gone and make him anxious, Ann decided that telling them a story would be a good choice.

In a cautious, yet confident voice, she suggested, "How would you like it if I told you all a story?"

"That would be wonderful," Jack replied with a smile. "Us painted dogs enjoy hearing and telling stories a lot you know."

"Good to hear," Ann said with a delighted soft smile. It was pleasing to have a receptive audience. Taking great care not to wake Jack and favoring her feet, she slowly, creakily, levered herself back up to a standing position. Striding upstream over the soft leaf litter for about eighty feet, she was aware of wire-tailed swallows cruising back and forth over the small river for insects, their rusty caps standing out against their dark blue faces and upperparts, occasionally showing their white bellies as they swooped and turned.

Now there was just the question of finding a tale they'd understand. She knew that as animals that weren't very familiar with human beings, something like a classic fairytale would only confuse them, and she'd have to do a lot of tiresome explanations about human behavior and creations.

Thankfully, she was resourceful as ever, and settled on one of her favorite tales, by Kipling. Even better, it took place in Africa. _Yes, very appropriate._

Taking a deep breath of warm, humus-scented air before sitting down and continuing, Ann told the painted dogs, "I'm going to tell you one of my favorite stories as a girl. It's called The Elephant's Child, and it's about how elephants got their trunks."

"We'll definitely enjoy that," Zuri said, and as the fifteen lanky canines listened expectantly, Ann got herself comfortable, shuffling into the leaves, and began, slipping into the storyteller's role and retelling the tale from heart as best she could as the butterflies flapped around her and a giant black millipede, nine inches in length, determinedly crawled at molasses speed across the forest floor nearby.

"In the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle from side to side; but he couldn't pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant-a new Elephant-an Elephant's Child-who was full of 'satiable curiosity, and that meant he asked ever so many questions. And he lived in Africa, and he filled all Africa with his 'satiable curiosities…"

And so it went, until Ann found herself finally uttering, "…And ever since that day, O Best Beloved, all the Elephants you will ever see, besides all those that you won't, have trunks precisely like the trunk of the 'satiable Elephant's Child."

Catching her breath, she was delighted to see that her listeners clearly thought the story was the cat's meow. They'd been impressed at Rudyard's language, chuckled at the pragmatically intellectual way the Bi-Colored-Python-Rock-Snake talked, listened with baited breath and then gasped in horror when the Crocodile tried to make a meal of the naïve Elephant's Child, and had a supremely difficult time controlling their laughter on hearing about how that naughty Elephant's Child got back at everyone for spanking him.

"O Bananas! What have you done to your nose?" Pekuzi chortled.

"I liked the part where the baboon uncle told him his nose looked ugly and he got thrown into the hornet's nest, mean as it was," Havoc smirked, amusement lighting her features.

"Rash and inexperienced traveler, we shall now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension," Zuri pretentiously said, mimicking the Bi-Colored-Python-Rock-Snake wonderfully before she and her mate broke into strangled chuckles. "Although I've never actually heard a rock python use nearly so many words," she offhandedly remarked.

"Think the crocodile ever caught on and started demanding payment for each trunk stretched?" White Dog queried of Wu. "I'd be demanding a full helping of meat from the lot myself."

"Ah, that was a grand story, Ann," Jack sighed with pleasure as he smiled, once everyone had settled down. "And almost too funny to stand."

Elated to hear that, she favored them with a pleased half-grin before shyly commenting, "Well, being funny is just what I do." _I make people laugh and I do it well, so well even the beasts enjoy it._ At least someone hung on every expression of her talents, although she'd never actually told stories as part of her previous career.

"You know," Dalia said thoughtfully, "that was so good, I think we should reciprocate with one of our own. How about it Ann? One good turn deserves another."

Charmed thoroughly at such a sweet offer, Ann timidly smiled before answering, "That's a terrific idea. I'm sure you must have fantastic tales of your own." They were all just so gentle and thoughtful. She'd never believed, wonder and awe resounding in her, that she'd be telling stories to and hearing stories from absolutely wild creatures that could think and _speak_ for the love of God.

_This has to have been what it was like for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden,_ Ann mulled, enchanted. She even had an Adam of her own to complete the analogy, fondly flicking a grateful blue eye in the direction of her sleeping companion and protector.

The confident response of "Fantastic tales? You sure bet we do," from Lotus's mouth snapped Ann out of her awed reverie then. "Would you like to tell the story Binky?" Jack asked his son. "Sure I would. You know I'm game for telling a tale," Binky enthusiastically answered, tongue lolling in joy.

Excited, the rest of the pack began to put forth suggestions.

"How about the one where Crimdu, the sun, creates the world?" Sadiki said.

"Or the story of Dume and Nina, the first wild dogs?" Matata suggested.

"I've always liked the one where Asande goes on a quest to find the Tree of Wisdom and splits it to release wisdom to all the world's creatures." Jumbe remarked.

"Ha! You can't beat the one where the brothers Tooth and Snarl fight off the hugest clan of hyenas anyone ever saw single-handedly!" Hodari proclaimed.

"What about the one where the hero Fahari and the lioness Kali form a partnership to survive the howling desert?" Havoc offered.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, one story suggestion at a time please!" Binky cried with a look of pretend panic, putting his paws over his ears and sinking to the ground in a faked display of defeatism before sitting back up.

"I think our audience here, since her story was so amusing, would like to hear an equally funny story. A nonsense story featuring yours truly to be exact," Binky continued, giving Ann a sly, sideways grin.

"Sounds like it'll be interesting," Ann answered. After those dreadful hours on the island, she could use a laugh or two or three in the worst way. Gently leaning against a wild olive's trunk, she relaxed and listened.

* * *

**Sorry for being so cruel everyone, but Binky's story will be in the next chapter. Until then, enjoy the bonding time**. 


	7. A Bit of Fun and a Big Surprise

**This is a _final _revised version of Chapter Seven. Binky's story is supposed to be in the form of a tall tale, but I probably messed it up big time.**

* * *

_For we've got flax-golden tales to spin/ Come in! _Shel Silverstein.

"Now," Binky announced, "this is a story about a monkey…Uh wait, it's about a rhino… Actually, it's about a crocodile that ate stuff…No! It's about me!" he said with mock pride. You just had to love the fella's playful enthusiasm.

"One day," he began, "I was resting in the shade of a clump of trees with the family. Not very much was going on, and I was watching the griffon vultures soaring around in the sky. It passed my mind how wonderfully advantageous it would be if we dogs could do that too. I mean, it would just make hunting so much easier, we could cover more ground faster, escape from those darned lions and hyenas if in a pinch, glide up to where the air was cool when it was really hot, and especially enjoy that feeling of pure freedom."

"So," Binky continued, "I got up and searched out the nearest tortoise. They're very wise and old creatures you see, and they would know what to do. To my joy, I soon found one. She was slowly traveling over the plain at only thirty miles an hour. I somersaulted up to her, played a drum to get her attention, and asked the tortoise, "My name is Binky-but you can call me Jeff The Wonder Dog-and I want to know how to fly like a bird, if you please.' "

Covering her lips with her slender hand, Ann had to choke back a chiming peal of laughter, turning around self-consciously a second later to see if she'd woken Jack. Thankfully his long form sprawled in the dead leaves and mottled by specks of sunlight, still showed no movement other than the slow rise and fall of his ribs as he breathed. He'd faced virtually certain death for her after all, so he deserved at least that much.

Deeply relieved, she again turned her attention to the painted dog's story. And how uproarious a story it already was, right up there with some of the ones Jimmy, Paulsen, or that Mexican sailor Carlos-but everyone called him Coyote-would tell after dinner when sea conditions were good, leaving the majority of listeners smirking, if not in stitches. There'd been one involving a goat and an umbrella that she'd especially enjoyed, causing her the embarrassment of hiccups.

A plodding tortoise slowly traveling at thirty miles an hour! And the moniker Jeff The Wonder Dog! This was definitely total baloney, but would clearly be a rib-splitter for sure, to use her late grandmother's words.

_Even Lewis Carroll would've been proud, _she thought through her laughter. _If only I could tell tales like that._

Pleased at her fervent response, Binky gave that appealing dog grin and continued, "The tortoise replied, "Salutations, Jeff The Wonder Dog. My name is Warthog, and although I can't tell you how to fly, I can direct you to someone who can. He's actually located in the Flight Department, you know."

Once more, considerately trying her best not to wake her playwright companion, Ann smiled widely then found herself chuckling again, the sound now mixed with some of the pack's own squeaks and muted expressions of amusement. _A tortoise named Warthog!_ That was just far too funny.

Feeling anxious about it again, Ann looked back over her gracile shoulder at Jack. To her relief, the only creature moving on its legs there was a flap-necked chameleon, turret-shaped eyes twitching independently of each other as it tentatively crossed the forest floor on its tonglike feet, rocking back and forth to seem like a brownish leaf.

" 'What's their name?' I asked her frantically. I just _had _to know, you see," Binky continued. "The tortoise put her forefeet against the sides of her head, stuck a nail into each ear, flipped over on her back, and began twirling around in a blur, making _meep-meep-ooh-ooh-neenork_ noises."

Now Ann was almost tearing up from her suppressed laughter. The mere thought of those robot-worthy noises were hilarious.

" 'What in the name of Dume and Nina are you doing!' I said in worry and shock," Binky went on. "'This is what I always do to help myself think,' the tortoise said, breaking off from making her _meep-meep_ noises. " 'It does great wonders for the blood circulation to your brain, you know. Try it sometime.'

Finally, after ten minutes or three hours, whichever comes first, the tortoise did a flawless backflip and landed squarely on her feet. Drooling and with eyes staring in different directions, she told me, 'The shaman you seek is an elephant named Staarabu. He lives in a forest many day's journey from here, where he can often be found trumpeting violently at nothing and playing with fire in his spare time."

"Sounds like a rather interesting character," Ann responded, showing her teeth in a girlish grin. "Although playing with fire doesn't seem a very wise thing to do." Trumpeting violently at nothing! A clumsy, painfully slow tortoise doing a backflip like she would so often do on stage!

The madcap tale of Binky's continued on for about forty minutes, until the story began to come to a close, and by this time, as much as they were trying to be quiet for Jack's sake, Ann and the painted dog pack were thoroughly beside themselves with hot, burning, strangled laughter. Her cerulean eyes were literally watering, she was having trouble sitting up, and she was laughing like she hadn't laughed in quite a long time.

For years, her mission in life and as an actress had been to be comedic, to encourage laughter and high spirits in an audience. Not very long ago,-although it certainly seemed that way now-she'd had to do it in deadly earnest for the most unusual and fiercest audience of all. It was both oddly quite pleasing and rather strange to be on the other side of the fence, listening to and watching someone else's efforts for a change, even she was in the surreal position of having talking animals performing them.

And what efforts! How could you possibly beat a story where the narrator flew by eating a whole bunch of feathers, then flapping his ears like butterfly wings-and these dogs sure had huge ears-as well as his forelegs, defeated a whole pride of lions with his mystical, lightening fast Shaolin kung fu moves, flew with both the pink flamingos and the blue flamingos, played that annoying "Shadow Game," with the elephant shaman, walked around on his hind legs or rode on tiger-striped rhinos when he got tired of trotting, roosted upside down with the fruit bats, grabbed a huge Cape buffalo bull by the horns and flung him away into a pond, magically defeated even more lions by shooting lighting bolts and rocks from his paws, got as big as a hill, met a group of cheetah brothers who were trying to kick the carnivore habit and become vegetarians, was attacked by a herd of meat-eating spearmint green impala,-"Hey, I should be trying to eat _you_, not the other way around"- flew high up to the sky to meet the sun, and was challenged by a crocodile to see who could roll down a steep riverbank and stand on their head the longest. Naturally, Binky won the contest.

"Then," Binky continued on, "I flew the whole way home in two different directions at once with the storks and the vultures, some of which were flying upside down, while I flapped my ears and forelegs like crazy. When I was thirsty, I skimmed the ponds like a swallow. When I was hungry, I plunged on antelope like a hawk. Sometimes if I was bored, I'd dive at the grazers, just to see them mill around in confused panic, and tease the lions from above. They deserved it."

"Finally, I returned and learned from a big little bird where my family was. I couldn't wait to teach them the secret of how to fly! I wanted to surprise them after my journey, so I ducked low and began to weave through a stand of fever trees. But wouldn't you know it, a storm suddenly rushed over, and I had the misfortune to run into an elephant, a tree, and get hit by lightening all at the same time!"

"Oh my, you poor thing," Ann replied, bringing her hand up to her mouth, playing along perfectly.

"But I was all right, just stunned a bit," Binky gently continued. "Somewhat warmer, singed, and a bit swimmy, I shook myself, stood in the rain a bit to cool off and clear my head, then trotted of to reunite with my family again."

"Oh, they were very glad to see me. After all the 'How are you's, and 'Where have you beens' and affectionate greetings, I intended to tell the pack that I'd discovered a way to fly on my journey, and that they could do it too if they just followed three easy steps."

_Three easy steps! Ah Binky, you just sounded like a hawker._

"But unfortunately," Binky sighed with a practiced look of disappointment on his face, "that lightening strike and running into the tree and the elephant at the same time had addled my knowledge up so much that I just couldn't remember how to fly anymore. Sometimes I thought I knew, but whenever I tried I failed, and never flew again. It was sure a big letdown, and I just went back to somersaulting and running across the land again."

Although it was meant to be funny, the painted dog's words struck a chord in Ann, and for a moment, forgetting it was just a made-up tale, she softly said, "I'm sorry about that Binky."

The ochre eyes changed suddenly from delighted, riotous amusement to confusion, and there was a silence as the whole pack's demeanor switched to a similar state. Ann thought she could hear Lotus whispering to Jumbe, "Oh nice, we slipped up and made her gloomy again."

Bouncing back quickly though, Binky held his head down in thought for a bit, and then raised it again, adding jovially, "But there were other, newer experiences to have, new things to discover, some almost as good as flying, like crocodile wrestling for instance. A dangerous game, but great fun."

Ann gave a barely perceptible sigh of relief. For those few moments, she'd been deeply worried, a knot in the pit of her stomach, that she'd just accidentally been a major killjoy. And as far as she as concerned, that was every bit a deep violation of who she was as being a burlesque girl.

_I make people laugh,_ she chided herself with the familiar mantra, _sure has heck not gloomy or depressed._

Binky paused at that moment, apparently thinking of another thing to add. "And then," Binky said, his voice taking on a new, more serious tone as he looked into Ann's eyes, "Crimdu came to tell me that there were two new creatures in the land. These creatures were called humans, one being male and named Jack, the other being female and named Ann."

How absolutely adorable, to put her and Jack in his story. Touched by that, Ann felt both the flush of blood in her cheeks from the embarrassment that comes from being singled out, and the sting of tears suddenly threatening to burst from her eyes at such a moving gesture. These wild beasts truly did feel for her.

"Both of them were hurt, lost, and tired," Binky softly continued, "and I could tell that Ann especially was so horribly lonely and sad, badly needing a friend."

_Oh God, yes, yes. _How could they hit it so perfectly on the mark? Now, she could feel her lips begin to quiver.

"So, I guided them through the savannah to my pack, as Great Crimdu showered down blessings of fruit, milk, honeycombs, cooked meats, cooked fish, and whole francolins down in his kindness, all just for them."

"When we arrived, Zuri and Jack and all the others were moved by Ann's distress, and cried out 'By the sky above, look at that poor lady Ann! She and her Jack are so just lonely and lost! But we'll adopt her and her mate into our pack, so that they may be members of our family. We'll take care of them as if they were our own pups!'"

_I can't stand it anymore_, she thought, and Ann gave vent to her grateful, moved tears.

"From that day on," Binky gently said, looking at her over his blunt muzzle, "Ann never knew loss, hurt, sadness, or despair ever again, for she continued to live in these lands for the rest of her days, with the painted dogs as her family, and Jack as her husband, partner, and most of all friend, loving, protecting, and providing for her always."

_Oh fellas, you can't know how deeply I want that to be true. That would be everything, everything…Of course, it would be even better if he and I were back safe in New York, and he told me the three magic words as proof_, a treacherous, realist part of her psyche added.

But in truth, Ann didn't mind at all right then losing herself in the task of building herself those airy mountain castles in her mind's eye, made of hopeful dreams and as grand as a Baroque hall.

Taking a deep, shaky breath to get her emotions under control, she reached forward to hug Binky, wrapping her thin arms around his short, sleek tortoiseshell coat as he tried to copy this weird new human custom as best he could.

As she began to draw back, to her surprise, another pair of arms, much stronger and ending in smooth, expressive long-fingered hands, suddenly slithered around her slim torso like a python's muscular coils. Startled, she gasped and released her hold on Binky and turned to see Jack's fondly smiling face, those sparkling eyes glinting in a shaft of sunlight as his lean frame arched above her. "Is there enough room for two here?" he playfully queried.

Surprise and longing quickly gave way to a stab of guilt and regret. "Oh Jack, we woke you, didn't we? I'm sorry about that," Ann remorsefully said, turning her gaze onto the chestnut-gray leaf litter.

"There's nothing to be sorry about Ann," Jack reassuringly replied, sliding his rough fingertips under her chin and forcing her to meet his gaze, as if he was slowly, thoughtfully picking up some priceless crown jewel to admire it all the better.

The warmth in those soft eyes was comforting, and Ann gave him a weak smile in return. "How long were you awake?" she said in slight shame, hoping it hadn't been too long. It would be just like him after all to have woken up, but slyly not made one sound, just listening and observing until he chose an opportunity to make his presence known on his own terms.

He'd done it so elegantly and perfectly at their first meeting on the Venture after all, when she'd mistaken poor departed Mike for him, and there was no reason to assume he wouldn't pull the same trick twice. She couldn't have felt more hideously humiliated or turned a brighter shade of scarlet than if she'd accidentally dumped a load of garbage on Mr. Carnegie.

"Well," he candidly replied, "I think I woke up when Binky here was telling you and his family about how he shot high-velocity rocks and sizzling lightening bolts at the pride of vicious lions that had him surrounded," showing his white teeth in that crooked grin.

Laying his radar-dish ears back in embarrassment, Binky hung his head then, saying sheepishly, "Sorry for causing you to be woken up, Jack."

"We kind of got a bit too caught up in the story's humor to help ourselves," his four-legged namesake apologetically explained, shrugging his variegated shoulders.

"No, that's all right", Jack said with a smile, flicking his wide hand in dismissal. "Heck, there's so little laughter in the world these days, that it's always welcome as far as I'm concerned, no matter what the time or place."

Relived he wasn't cross, and seeming to understand the truth of that statement, the dogs all congenially nodded. "Yeah, laughter is always welcome," White Dog concurred.

_And New York is a place where laughter is especially welcome, _Ann dolefully thought as she inhaled deeply of the musky air, remembering back to that now so far-off city that she'd been so desperate and happy to leave.

Breaking her nostalgic thoughts, Jack sat down by her side, folding up his legs and taking her hand as he complemented Binky, "You have a pretty good sense of humor you know buddy? If I ever decide to break from my melancholy pattern and write a comedy again, you'll be the one I send for," smiling as the dogs gave their appreciative squeaking laughs and Ann unhesitatingly joined in.

Not only was his comment hilarious in itself, but it had unaccountably made her think of the lines from _Cry Havoc_ where Edgar, totally flustered at being caught right in the middle of a heated argument between his pregnant sister Charlotte and expecting aunt Leah, shouts out in exasperation, "Can it, both of you! One pregnant lady at a time!" How she'd loved that little scene!

Still holding up his end of the conversation and giving that captivating grin, Jack told Binky, "That part with you using magic to defeat the lions was quite good you know. I enjoyed the part with the carnivorous impala too. Very well done."

"Aww, thanks," the wild dog said. Unlike humans, it is impossible for canines to blush, but if Binky could've, he would've.

"That last part though, with me and Ann…" Jack softly, shyly said, sinking his head into his shoulders slightly as he turned his attention back to her and wrapped one of those long, muscular tan arms around her narrow shoulders, Ann responding by warmly leaning into his solidness, "That was very sweet. Very moving. Thank you. I'm glad you think of us that way."

"You're welcome indeed," Binky solemnly responded.

"It came from all our hearts," Lotus amended tenderly, coming forward herself to receive an affectionate series of strokes from both him and Ann.

After that, she and Jack and the pack just sat for a bit together under the mottled light, simply enjoying the presence of each other and the warmth of their new friends in this enchanting wonderland.

_It's not about the words,_ Ann blissfully thought as she leaned harder into Jack's torso, taking care to be considerate of his injuries as his graceful writer's hand responded by wrapping around her nape and delving into her curls.

Deciding to break the stillness, Jack lightly scratched a tsetse bite on the small of his back under his shirt, then inquired of the painted dogs as a whole, "I'm just wondering-since I went and slept through most of it after all-what was the motivation behind that nonsense story's telling anyway? Just curious," he added.

"That was because your lovely bi-I meant lady!" Wu stammered, frantically halting himself on seeing the incensed and stung looks rising in the respective eyes of both humans, "told us a very entertaining and amusing story of her own first, and we decided to tell one in return."

Her brief flash of insulted resentment replaced by nervous pride, Ann gave a faint smile as Jack turned his head to meet her gaze, a proud smile lighting his features as he said, "So you played the storyteller then Ann, did you? Which one did they get the pleasure of listening to?"

Giving a small nod, she responded, "The Elephant's Child."

"Ahh," he said, nodding happily in nostalgic recognition. "I absolutely loved those Just So Stories as a boy. In fact, I'm a big fan of Kipling's work in general-although I don't exactly agree with all that imperialist rubbish he sometimes spouts," waving his hand in mild contempt.

"But anyway," he dismissed, giving a languorous stretch as he did so, "nice to hear everyone enjoyed it."

"We certainly learned about how useful trunks are for spanking," Havoc smiled.

Changing tracks, Jack thought for a moment, and then playfully remarked, "You know, there's something about all the fun that makes me feel _so _left out here. I feel like I should be adding my own nickel to this."

"Jack, you don't have to participate if you don't feel like it," Ann softly urged. "It's enough to just sit and rest. Besides, what would your friends think if the word got out that the great playwright had been telling bedtime stories?"

"I want to," he shrugged. "Besides, there's no one else here to take down reputation-damaging notes," he wryly added. "And I know you won't dare talk," he said, giving her a mock glower with those green eyes that she couldn't resist laughing at.

"That's because you're so much stronger and wouldn't show any mercy to me if I did," she giggled in jest.

He gave a faint, close-lipped smile, then lightly kissed her on her right temple, right where the skin was thin and sensitive and it felt like calligraphy being poured into her brain before purring out, "Actually, that's the most I would do," into her ear.

Drawing back and adopting the same Indian-style position as she had, Jack then obligingly told the excited hunting dogs, their Mickey Mouse ears hanging intently on every word, an Irish folktale called The Twelve Wild Geese. It was a tale he'd heard from his father and grandfather-Ann already knew quite well from their time together on the Venture and from his surname that he was half Irish-about a queen who selfishly wished for a daughter instead of the twelve sons she already had. Her foolish desire was granted by an old woman, who caused the young men to literally be whisked away on the day of the girl's birth to a cottage where they assumed the forms of geese during the day and became human again at night. Eventually of course, they were all reunited, with everything being set right at the end, as always happened in fairy tales.

_But I know far better_, a cynical, jaded little part of her mind sputtered, immediately making her mentally slap it down in shock. _Just listen along, don't wallow in paranoid self-pity._

She'd long been enthralled and amazed by his skill with the written word, but it was equally, wonderfully delightful for Ann to see that Jack could be every bit as masterful with the spoken word, at least when it came to good, familiar literature. When he ended, the spell of the tale abruptly broken, she congratulated him warmly, clapping her hands and saying "Very good!" in awe.

He acknowledged her praise with a small crooked smile and a quick dip of the head as the painted dogs gave their own chirping squeaks and flutelike clear _hoos_ of applause. Some, like Moja and White Dog, even charmingly tried to mimic her clapping in the sprit of "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Unfortunately, they didn't do very well at it.

"That was a very pleasing tale indeed Jack," a duly impressed White Dog said, the light playing over the great patches of ivory in his coat.

"I've always liked stories with magic in them, and that was just great," Pekuzi told his mother Zuri fondly.

"Thanks." Jack said, almost coyly.

"Good way of teaching people to be satisfied with what they have," Jumbe nodded reflectively. She never thought in her wildest dreams she'd be hearing wild animals appraising a folktale, and could see the same hidden amazement in Jack's hooded malachite eyes as well.

Ann's thoughts were derailed then when nervously, Zuri and Jack came forward again, catching the attention of both humans. Shuffling from foot to foot with ears half laid back-and looking almost guilty, Ann thought-Jack told them "Ann, Jack, its getting late in the day now. And you see, that's ahh…one of the times when we go hunting, you see."

Compared to other carnivores their size, African painted dogs have an amazingly high metabolism. As a result, they burn energy fast, meaning that they have to make a kill at least once a day, and twice if possible. This is in stark contrast to wolves for example, which generally go 3-4 days without needing to eat after a big kill.

"Early morning and late afternoon, that's when we make our living," Wu evenly stated.

For a brief moment, Ann's mouth went dry, remembering how the painted dogs had literally eaten the Grant's gazelle alive before her, a sight so unbearably atrocious that she'd had to bury her face in Jack's broad shoulder. His gentle urging to her "Don't look," really hadn't been necessary. And how they'd come back matted with and reeking of blood…She shuddered involuntarily.

But they'd just been doing what they had to do to survive and eat, and she'd been doing the exact same thing ever since the Lyric Theater closed-since her mother died on her and her two sisters dispersed, for that matter. And for cripes' sake, if she had to perform the deeply unladylike action of killing a sheep or a chicken with just her teeth, it probably wouldn't be a pretty sight either. So who was she to dare judge?

Jack's rough, expressive hand meshing with her fingers brought her out of her thoughts, and she noticed with clarity that yes, the sun was much lower on the horizon now, the shafts of light penetrating the riverine wood like amber needles now coming in at sharp diagonals.

"Didn't you already go hunting today right after we met?" Jack reasonably pointed out.

"Yes," Zuri replied, "but remember, that hunting was so _you_ two could have something to eat, not to feed ourselves. We were already full then."

"But now you're not," Jack figured out. "Well, if you want to go hunt for yourselves, go do it then. I think Ann and I will be just fine until you get back," he dryly remarked.

"We'll still bring some meat back for you two if you want," Lotus offered, getting up and getting prepared to join her pack on the hunt.

"That's a sweet offer, but we're not hungry right now," Ann graciously declined.

"There's plenty of figs for us around here. Don't trouble yourselves," Jack added.

Suddenly, the dogs once again gave each other those same fidgeting, inexplicable looks of hesitation and guilt. "We have to tell them sometime," Jumbe told his alpha and brother softly. "Might as well be now."

_Tell us what_? Ann thought, the paranoia and fear beginning to poke at her gut again.

As if he had to announce a child's death to its mother, Jack stepped forward, sighed, and said, "That's a pity then, since it was meant to be a parting gift."

"What did you say?" his human namesake cried in astonishment.

_I told you, good things never last,_ a cynical part of Ann's mind mocked, as her delicate lips and jaws parted in shock. _Not friends, not jobs, not money, not anything._ And once again, Ann could just stare at the painted dogs in emotional devastation, an expression on her pale face akin to a sledgehammered sheep's.

She'd been let down again.


	8. On The Road Again

**Well, it's been _two months_ since I last uploaded a chapter for this story, and I bet you good readers have been wondering if either I died or gave up on this tale. Rumors of both are highly exaggerated. There are reasons for this however. I had a heck of a time for one thing getting the parting scene between our leads and the painted dogs _just _right. I'm not and never will be good at partings in my writing, but I think I've finally hammered something decent out. Also-well, it's just too nice out in summer to sit at your computer all day long. Last of all, I'm going even deeper into a "quality not quantity" philosophy.**

**I deeply regret saying this, but as frustrating as it is to everyone, NO, Nala and Simba are _still _not in this chapter. It just got too long for its own good I'm afraid, and I knew you all wanted to read something, anything too. One of the wonderful things about doing fanfiction is that it allows you to freely experiment with different styles of writing, and this is why I've chosen to do a "stream of consciousness" from Jack's point of view in the middle section. These experiments can and will happen at any time, so look sharp.**

**As always, profuse thank yous to my reviewers. You all give me the will to keep at it. This chapter has been revised for more romance.**

* * *

"_And the Woman said 'His name is not Wild Dog anymore, but the First Friend, for he will be our friend for always and always and always.'" _Rudyard Kipling, _The Cat Who Walked By Himself._

_"I wonder/ as I wander/"_ Refrain from a children's song.

_Doublecrossed._ That brutal word was what immediately popped into Jack Driscoll's head, accompanied by a rising sense of disappointed fury towards the pack. In the same instant, he understood quite well that the feeling made absolutely no sense. They were wild animals after all; _sentient_ wild animals at that, with lives and agendas totally separate from theirs. To expect the painted dogs to make some sort of lasting covenant with him and Ann was absurd, to say the least.

Still, he had selfishly, and probably naively hoped on the faint possibility that for once after these two terrible last days, he could stop having to constantly be the resilient bulwark, the hard-boiled champion who'd taken on the mantle of Baxter's ultimately pathetically faux hero image-then at the swamp as now, he'd felt and strangled the sudden, exotic, frightening desire to just punch someone. His dog namesake, Zuri, and their pack would protect, provide for, and help guide them safely back to sweet civilization as they knew it, and Jack could take at least part of the load off his shoulders at last.

But self-interested fantasies usually never came true in the end, despite how much the public liked to hear it, or the individual liked to believe it, and he'd known that for quite a while and quite well. Naturally of course, the defeat of his tenuous expectations did make him feel more than a little annoyed at the idea of being let go for him and Ann to wander in the wilderness.

The worst of it though, was the sudden, sickening sense of shocked betrayal and disillusioned sadness Jack could feel radiating from Ann, her supple fingers going painfully limp in his own and sliding out. And that knowledge of her hurt automatically conjured up a gummy, hot feeling of pique in response.

But if they were going to part ways, well, the dogs would ultimately do it whether he and Ann liked it or not, no matter how much they fumed and protested. He might as well just accept it and not stupidly weaken or burn bridges by being obstinate. _Plus_, he recollected, exhaling deeply to calm himself, _we were intending to go to Pride Rock and get help there after we'd slept anyway before they encountered us. They're already remorseful at having to leave us, so guess I should tell them that to put their minds at ease._

"Well, to be perfectly on the level here, we actually weren't planning to live with your pack anyway," Jack straightforwardly told the painted dogs, his voice still tainted with residual anger on Ann's behalf. Realizing to his horror then that he'd likely just projected an ungrateful, "sour grapes" type attitude (and stung expressions were already beginning to show in some sets of mahogany eyes), he backpedaled, going "Oh Jesus, I'm sorry. What I meant was that we kind of intended to follow Indlovu's advice and go to this place nearby called Pride Rock, where we'd get help from-what were their names Ann?" turning to her for guidance.

"King Mufasa and Queen Sarabi," she demurely prompted, coming out of her reproachful unhappiness.

And then, even as she'd finished and he was opening his mouth to thank her, the whole pack of piebald canines suddenly went stock still, muscles tense, ears laid back. It was as if he and Ann had just uttered a horribly disgusting curse or boasted about some unspeakably despicable act they'd committed together.

_Oh Christ, what faux paus did we just commit now?_

A true edge of apprehension tinting his pleasurably dulcet voice, Matata said, "Good Crimdu, you can't be serious."

"Did we say something out of turn?" Ann hesitantly volunteered.

"Not in the least," Havoc reassured her. "It's not about what you said, it's about what you two are planning to do."

"Why exactly?" Jack confusedly prodded.

Pulling himself into an authoritative position, parabolic ears erect, his namesake then queried, in a low, deadly serious tone, " Jack, Ann, do you know who King Mufasa and Queen Sarabi are? Do you know _what_ they are?"

After a moment's thought, the obvious answer hit him.

"Lions, aren't they? Mufasa and Sarabi are lions. I should've known," he said, feeling both somewhat sheepish for not having put two and two together earlier, and that sense of grateful, nervous relief one gets after learning that they just barely avoided a dangerous situation.

"Oh my goodness," Ann said in surprise, apparently feeling the same emotions herself as she brought the tips of her fingers up to her open lips, and instinctively pressed her pale body against his.

"And you don't want to have anything to do with lions," Sadiki pointedly added. "They're total bullies and jerks."

"Bullies? Why is that?" Jack asked, briefly put off a bit inwardly by such strongly opinionated word usage about the King Of The Beasts.

"Well, for one thing, they often come out of nowhere and steal our kills, after we worked so hard to bring an animal down," Mbawa resentfully revealed. "That's the main reason why we eat so fast," he added.

"Still, that's at least understandable, and I guess forgivable in a way," Zuri interjected. "I mean, we do the same thing to the cheetahs and the hyenas at times ourselves. It's just a lot less hassle to take meat off someone else then to have to chase it down yourself, you know?"

And Jack certainly did, nodding in agreement. This was the wild after all; a place where desperation and uncertainty ruled and you couldn't afford to let an opportunity to eat pass you by, even if you had to resort to rather morally dubious behavior. It was really just like life was for the unemployed masses wandering the streets back home, only even more brutally unforgiving.

_Like it had been for Ann_, he thought pityingly, looking at her and wrapping an arm around her graceful shoulders. Clearly interpreting his gesture as reassurance-thankfully, for he knew it made Ann feel mildly ashamed and even a little irked to have someone feel badly for her-he felt the sudden tension in her muscles drain away, to his proud relief.

Switching to another page in his head, he considered in that vein how she wouldn't even be in his life and awareness if Carl hadn't stumbled across her, in a dire gesture, trying to filch an apple. For that matter, Jack himself, his high-minded ideals of fair play and righteousness notwithstanding, had admittedly felt through his disgusted horror as the dogs tore into the Grant's gazelle a very brief, yet powerful, instinctive urge to rush forward and swipe the fresh meat for his own. Steal it so that he and Ann could live.

_I guess I'll be having to do that soon enough_, he pragmatically thought, smacking and squashing a tsetse fly that had just lighted on his right side.

"They also chase us away from places where we were just resting, which is pretty rude of them." White Dog complained on. "And they often hurl direct insults at us, just because they can," he added with a growl.

"But the worst thing of all, the worst, is that lions will deliberately stalk and kill us whenever they can," Zuri said with a shudder. "And not even for food. They just do it out of rage and to suit themselves."

It was a disturbing revelation, and Ann, shocked, cried out, "My God, that's horrible! Why would they do that?" putting a hand to her mouth in incomprehension.

"We think it's because they regard us as competitors for their own prey, and it's definitely an instinctive thing at any rate," Jumbe theorized. "They'll kill any other carnivore they can, for that matter. I sure don't pretend to understand why, I mean there are plenty of wildebeest, zebra, and gazelle to go around, and we're so nomadic anyway that we can't be interfering with any one pride's hunting that badly. There's certainly no reason to go around assassinating fellow carnivores like some crazy."

"Do you ever approach the lions at all, for any reason?" Jack asked, trying to get some idea of what reception he and Ann might get from the big cats, and especially if they could be reasoned with.

"Sure," the four-legged Jack said. "Occasionally, as pack leader I've found it necessary to have an audience with the Lion King of whatever lands we're traveling through at the time about a problem that concerns us both, or more often to request help for an ill pack member."

So there was a chance that you could, if you were diplomatic, encounter lions and get out of it alive. That was very good to know.

"But," Jack cautioned, as if he'd read the writer's mind, "I always make damn sure I get a promise of safe passage first. And then I confirm it again. Even then, I never turn my back on any of those kitties, believe me, and you can sure bet that I watch my step.

Make no mistake about it, the lions are _savage_ brutes, and I'd do my utmost to avoid them if I were you Jack and Ann. Don't have more to do with them than you can help. In fact, just don't be anywhere nearby at all," he frankly advised.

"I don't understand," Ann said, her sleek brow wrinkled in confusion. "Why would Indlovu have suggested going to Pride Rock if it would've put our lives in danger?"

"That's because he's an elephant," Havoc stated, flipping her forepaw in a dismissive gesture Jack found all too oddly humanlike. "They're so huge they don't fear anything, or really even recognize that what might be safe for them is dangerous for a smaller creature. Plus, they're so into dignity and royal protocol and authority themselves that of course he'd have thought the lions were a good choice."

"Yeah, once they hit the age of eight-nothing can touch me now, pal!" Binky emphasized, making Jack smirk and Ann giggle. How he loved that high, chiming giggle.

Suddenly conscious of the fact that twilight would be coming soon enough, Jack told the dogs as he looked behind him towards the open plains, "In any case though, thanks for your advice. We'd better be moving on ourselves now."

"Well," Zuri answered with an open-mouthed smile, "it was great to have met you, and a real delight to count you as honorary pack members," as Jack, ignoring the soreness and twinges flaring up from his wounds and stiff muscles as best he could, levered himself up and then considerately took Ann's hand to support her while she stood erect herself in turn.

Following the pack of gorgeously variegated animals as they trotted out of the woodlands, he and Ann stopped at the edge to see them off. "Here's where we say goodbye for now I suppose," Jumbe said in a mixture of resignation and warmth.

"Sure hope to see you again," Lotus fondly said, nudging Jack's waist with her blocky muzzle.

"How do we know that we will?" Ann inquired in something of a dispirited plea.

Sensing her mood, Zuri gave her a warm grin, reassuring her, "Because as rare as it may be, friends that the painted dogs make remain that way forever. When the spirit moves us or we hear that they need our assistance, we get up to our paws and we find our friends, no matter how much distance and time separates us."

It was not only touching, but Jack understood it as being said with utmost sincerity as well, and he could see that Ann knew it too, curving her lovely lips into a smile of hesitant, promising hope before bending down to hug the alpha female. The other fourteen members of her pack bid their goodbyes with an affectionate series of licks, both humans reciprocating by passing their hands between the parabolic ears and patting shoulders, feeling the coarse, wooly short fur.

It was a quick thing, and suddenly, the pack abruptly switched focus, rallying and prancing around their alphas, making those animated squeaking cries and licking Jack and Zuri's lower jaws. "Good luck, and may Crimdu bless you both." Jack said through the voices of his family. "Keep on being strong, smart, and courageous for each other, and I'm willing to bet you'll both continue to do fine."

"Thanks fellas. Let's do this again sometime," Jack responded with a smile, putting his arm around Ann's slim shoulders. Oddly, it made him think of a farming couple seeing off visitors to their home.

"And good luck to all of you as well," Ann put in cordially, her expressive blue eyes shining. "We'll be seeing you."

Then, their followers arranging themselves into a ragged group, Jack and Zuri gave a series of flutelike _hoos_,the rallying cry of the wild dogs. In response, the painted dog pack turned and put on a swift turn of speed, running unhurriedly in that easy, athletic, ground-eating lope as crowned plovers flew up shrieking in surprise before them.

Out of Africa's five great predators, the painted dogs are by far the most nomadic, a pack being able to cover as much as fifty miles in a day when they don't have den-bound pups, and about half that distance on average. They live a truly footloose lifestyle, one that is part pirate, and part gypsy. And just like Madeline's gypsies, the dogs "never stay. They only come to go away."

Rooted to the spot and suddenly aware of how pitifully slow human beings truly were, Jack just watched with Ann from the tree line while the checkered forms of "those who are white at the tail," as the Maasai call the dogs, disappeared into the southeast. Then there was nothing but the long, mournful whistles of a gray hornbill, the clear _peeu-peeu-peeu_s of blue-naped mousebirds, the shrilling of cicadas, and the omnipresent coos of the laughing doves.

With their departure, he suddenly felt so much more alone, the sheer weight of his responsibility as sole protector and provider leaping down to mantle his shoulders in lead. "So now what do we do Jack?" Ann hesitatingly said, putting his thoughts into words perfectly as with sapphire eyes that like the eyes of T. J. Eckleburg sometimes seemed bigger than her head, she turned to look into his own.

"A pretty good question. I suppose it wouldn't inspire much confidence to say that I'm not really sure?" Jack wryly said with a grin.

"No, that's not exactly helping one bit."

"Sorry. One thing I _do_ know though, is that we're not going to get very much accomplished just standing here," he dryly added as he went back to the croton bush where they'd been sleeping under the pack's protection and picked up that crude limb bone club.

As he stood up, he felt Ann's presence close behind him and the weight of her sapphire stare on his form. When he turned, he heard her say his name, softly.

"Jack?" It was a plea, an expression of hesitation and internal uncertainty as much as it was a query.

"Yes Ann?" he responded, in a tone that was both neutral yet soft as fog at the same time. Her face wore the same expression of nervous indecision that he remembered from their first rapturous kiss on the Venture, already seemingly ages ago; her eyes held something like a desperate hope as well now.

He knew what Ann wanted to do, and as she began to take strides towards him, he did the same, literally meeting her halfway, keeping a hold of the bone as his angel slipped her arms around his ribcage. Touched by her implicit trust, he embraced Ann back, stroking hair like golden thistledown even as she voiced, "Don't you dare leave me. You're truly all I've got," raising her face to his.

"I wouldn't dare dream of it," he tenderly told her, stroking her back with his free hand. "I'll be your light and guide and look out for you as long as you wish Ann."

"I could want you to be that forever," she innocently told him.

"Then the wish is granted," he said, smiling before entwining his fingers in her hair and planting a kiss on her widow's peak. _A sign of excellent breeding, _he thought.

"Besides," he continued, gesturing outward with his hands as she drew back from him, "whom would I talk to then without you around?"

"The animals?" she wryly pointed out.

"Yes, true, the animals can talk back for some unfathomable reason, but I've always found my own kind to make far better conversation partners," he affirmed, feeling his mouth corners and cheeks tense in a smile that was part fondness, part mirth. "And you're a far lovelier companion to have as well."

Her cheeks flushing pink, Ann adopted a posture of coy embarrassment for a few moments, than said in a reassured tone, "Thank you very much Jack. In more ways than one," with a small smile that only revealed her top two teeth. God, how he loved when she did that.

"Hey, we're sticking together and looking out for each other out here," Jack intoned with a small, awkward, shoulder shrug.

"Whether we like it or not," Ann playfully teased to break the solemn mood, lightly whacking his uninjured shoulder as he chuckled.

Touching his palms together, Jack reluctantly dismissed his thoughts, reflectively saying, "We'd better go take some fire with us though, if we expect to cook any meat and keep warm, to say nothing of protecting ourselves."

Ann following, he then turned and walked back out into the never-ending green pasture of Bermuda and Rhodes grass, the sun briefly dazzling him as his nostrils became reacquainted with the perfumes of grass, dung, musky earth, heated air and growth itself, washing over him in the wind as the scent of pine and resin hits the traveler encountering the woods of Northern Minnesota for the first time.

Compared to when he'd last entered the riverside forest, the air was distinctly cooler now, pleasurably warm instead of blisteringly hot. The small bands of other animals were more active as a result too. Reaching down with his free right hand and trying to disregard the blossoming twinges from his cuts and bruises that resulted from bending, he picked up a suitably dry fallen branch of African greenheart, stretched his hands above his head, and then retraced his footsteps back to the impromptu sort of campfire he'd made for cooking.

Although it was burnt down to white-hot coals and ashes, the branch caught nonetheless when Jack knelt down and touched it to them, the twigs becoming glowing, withering coils that sent thin whispers of smoke slithering into the air. Waiting until the branch had soon burnt down to its main body, he untangled himself from his kneeling position to stand up. It was a bit of a balancing act to hold the firestick and reach down to pick up the limb bone, but that was resolved when Ann volunteered, "I'll take that Jack. I can even carry that burning stick around for you if you want. Take some pressure off my sheik's shoulders."

"Thanks doll," he told her warmly as the safe end left his fingers for hers, looking into her blue eyes. Already, they were making the beginnings of a good team out here.

"A bone club and having to carry fire around, while walking on the African plains" he chuckled in amusement. "Really is like it was back in the old days, back to the primitive, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is, except I don't believe our first ancestors ever knew a world with talking animals," Ann playfully, gleefully responded, her creamy teeth and delicate lips parting in a mirthful laugh that Jack very soon just had to participate in.

When they were done, he decided they'd better start traveling again. "Well, let's shake a leg," he told himself out loud, and began to head in their original direction, towards the small river's still unseen source. Suddenly, he remembered the condition of Ann's poor abused feet, covered in scabs, scratches, and abrasions, dirty and oozing blood. Just imagining the pain she must feel putting that bare, unprotected sole to ground made his very own feet sting in a sympathetic response.

_Poor little bunny_, he thought glumly.

Turning sideways to stop and look at her, he softly questioned, "Ann, do you think you can walk okay? What I mean is, would it hurt you to do it for a long distance? I'll be perfectly happy to carry you if want."

"In fact," he volunteered in a burst of sudden altruistic inspiration, "how about I give you my own shoes and I just go in socks?" _Yeah, that's a perfect idea_, he thought, starting to take off his footwear.

"That's very kind of you Jack, but keep your shoes on for now," Ann told him in gentle refusal, touched as she clearly was. "The grass doesn't feel half bad really. Personally, I think it's kind of nice and bouncy to be walking on."

"And besides," she added, "I _did_ use to be a vaudeville lady after all, so I've given my feet more than a few hard knocks already-including while barefoot. I've even come down on a toe wrong and snapped it a few times," she offhandedly remarked, briefly giving an involuntary cringe at the memory of what had to have been terrible pain.

"That would be a time when I'd really be wanting you to carry me then, Jack. But don't worry, I can still walk just fine out on this," she reassured him, gesturing at the grass.

"If you say so," Jack sighed. "But if it ever hurts too badly, just let me know, and I'll let you have my shoes in a heartbeat."

"Of course," she agreed.

Going out about eight hundred feet into the emerald green sward, Jack finally turned and started walking more or less parallel to the gallery woodland, feeling the bone club's weight add momentum to his swinging left arm with each step. He wanted to be in a place where he could see their immediate surroundings comfortably, making it all the more difficult for a lion or leopard to sneak up on and ambush them. Yes, this short-grass country was the domain of those feline speedsters, the cheetahs, but he'd never heard of a single instance of the gentle cats attacking a person, so it wasn't an issue.

As for the dangerous herbivores-_now there is one hell of an oxymoron_, he thought-like buffalo or elephants, they would be able to see and hear him and Ann coming in plenty of time to react and move away. And so, a dangerous situation where the animal would be surprised and feel cornered would be avoided.

Last but not least, by staying out in the short grass, it was far less likely that they'd literally stumble upon a puff adder, Egyptian cobra, or other venomous snake, something Jack was especially worried about with Ann's bare feet and exposed legs. If the horrific, unthinkable tragedy did happen and he failed to keep fate from taking Ann away from him, he did not want to have to watch her die in the slow, hellish agony of snakebite. He'd willingly far rather take the bite himself.

The subject of that sudden morbid thought, gracefully falling into step beside him as he walked and cradling the butt end of the torch against the right side of her ribs, asked in confused trepidation, "Jack, why are we still heading towards Pride Rock? Didn't you hear what the dogs said about the lions?"

"You sure bet I did," he replied, a brief twist of fear gnawing at his stomach as he considered the unknown, frightening possibilities of what could happen in an encounter with the tawny cats, anyone of which could probably kill him with a single blow. Although they were walking in the flat river valley, he could now see a huge rectangular column of reddish-tan sandstone peeking over a ridge to their left, getting steadily bigger as they kept walking north.

And Jack could sense very well that what he was seeing was just the proverbial tip of the iceberg, still a good distance away from them. He too, didn't want to meet that natural castle's inhabitants any more than she did. Most likely, if they did run into the lions, the big cats would bolt in fear, or calmly leave after satisfying their curiosity from a distance. _But then again, they might not,_ he reflected dismally.

He thought back briefly to when Carl had once proudly showed him, back in 27', film he'd taken of a staged Samburu lion hunt. The shields of the spearmen had provided surprisingly good protection against the maned beast's rage. Still, the chocolate-maned cat had managed to briefly get his paw under a shield as he began to collapse, wrap it around the man's leg-and slice the Samburu's calf muscle with his claws like Jack would cut a banana.

In the wilds of Africa, the _real_ $10,000 question as far as all the animals are concerned is "Where are the lions and what are they currently doing at this moment?" Even the uncertain question of whether the great honey-colored cats are hungry or not seems to hang in the air like windblown dust, and it sure is an equally pressing question to the person walking unarmed or at best lightly armed in lion country.

"Still, we need to find some sort of shelter before nightfall, and if Pride Rock is that big," Jack continued, gesturing towards the gently growing monolith with the back of his left hand, "there's probably a few other smaller rock hills around it too. Maybe there could be one that's close enough to the waterhole that we'll have easy food and drink, but far enough away that the lions won't even know we're lying up there right under their noses." The deliciously satisfying idea of being able to see the lions, yet not be seen by them, cunningly hiding in plain sight, was something Jack found oddly alluring.

"Besides," he added, "if there's a marsh around there, that'll mean reeds. And reeds mean I can make some sort of footwear for you," he pointed out, briefly looking over his shoulder into Ann's face and then down to her legs.

Many times during his life, Jack Driscoll had regarded the impressively done pairs of Ancient Egyptian sandals displayed in their glass cases in the Museum Of Natural History, as well as the more recent Japanese waraji, simple traveler's sandals with straps and soles made out of straw rope. Although he'd never exactly been one for handicrafts, despite his mother's enthusiastic attempts, Jack felt optimistic that he could do a passable job of making similar footwear with Ann's help.

"If you say so Jack," Ann responded with a buoyant trust, accepting his reasoning.

They fell silent for a time then, just enjoying each other's company and taking in the invigorating, gorgeous wild scenery around them as they walked. One of the things Jack had loved about Ann right from the start was that she wasn't at all the type of woman who talked just for the sake of talking, shooting the bull until it became as annoying and meaningless as the buzzing of flies.

He took her soft left hand in his, thrilling to how she clenched back in unquestioning, passionate warmth and recognition. Simply to touch her skin, her hair, was like becoming a whole. _My beauty._ No, it wasn't about the words.

But even when he wasn't talking, Jack often thought at top speed, and he decided to give himself up to this pastime for the moment as they walked together. When he and Ann had climbed so wearily out of the stygian elephant graveyard and first gazed upon this surreal paradise, Jack had been as close to the terminal stages of exhaustion as a man could be while still having the ability to walk. If he ever got back to New York, -_and we will, _he told himself- he'd be perversely curious to go ask Peter Denham, one of Carl's older brothers, if he'd felt similar sensations after the Germans had tortured him with lengthy sleep deprivation sessions in the POW camp during the Great War.

Truthfully, he still would've loved to just lie down and sleep for at least an entire day. Still, six or seven hours of well-deserved shut-eye had taken the edge off his terrible weariness, and he didn't feel like his head was being squeezed in a vise, have blurred vision, or hear a ringing in his ears anymore.

Instead, he felt almost giddy. Against all odds, he'd managed to fight his way through a genuine green hell, and somehow, snatch Ann more or less literally right from the hands of the colossal ape that had been holding her captive. The overjoyed, blessed feeling of knowing that the two of them were miraculously, vividly _alive_ and together again was something so exhilarating and pure that no drug could ever compare to it.

So many things he'd thought he'd never see or hear or feel again during his multiple brushes with death on the island,-green grass, warm wind, blue sky, his heartbeat, contented happiness, the touch of Ann's smooth hand-Jack Driscoll was privately reveling in like he'd spent his whole life in a jail cell and was now experiencing for the first time. There are very few thrills in this world to compare to the realization that you've somehow miraculously survived, when the cloud of terrible doom hanging over the head has suddenly dispersed and lifted.

Even the landscape itself, the gentle rolling ridges and flat spaces mantled in vivid green grass and Sodom apple clumps, punctuated by scattered sentinels of acacias and jackalberries and wild olives, served to accent and strengthen his ecstatic enchantment all the more. It was an endless meadow in summertime, an infinite, sprawling, wild playing field where you could set up and play as many games of baseball, stickball, golf, or croquet as your heart desired. All you had to do was just watch out for any antelope in your ball's path.

To be perfectly plain, as soon as Jack had first laid eyes on Skull Island's form looming up out of the fog, it had filled him with a profound sense of foreboding, even as he'd marshaled up his courage to reassure Ann. Just looking at its craggy, brooding, crumbling features, its great ancient wall resembling the petrified spine of some huge dead beast, had made Jack's stomach feel as if a whole bunch of lizards had somehow got in and were skittering around in a shared panic. Even the normally innocuous seabirds had seemed to him almost like devious white ravens, flapping and circling around the terrible palace of some malevolent fairytale sorcerer.

As a young man, one of his favorite stories had been Richard Connell's chillingly disturbing hunting-tale-with-a-twist, _The Most Dangerous Game_. And despite his higher esteem for theatre, he surprisingly had hugely enjoyed watching the RKO picture of it in the cinema last year.

He vividly remembered how Whitney had talked to Rainsford in both versions near the beginning about how he often felt evil was a tangible thing, with wavelengths that could be felt like the light or heat that was currently pressing down on both of them from the powerful African sun, and how a bona-fide, bone-deep, truly evil place could quite literally send out vibrations of evil.

Just like Rainsford had, Jack had found the idea to be an intriguing one, and a nicely done element of foreshadowing in a plot, but ultimately laughably fictitious. You could sense evil intent in a person or animal, certainly, but not in a _place_ for God's sake.

On seeing Skull Island though, and particularly when he got out of the longboat, setting foot on the pebble shore even as his instincts shouted "_RUN, RUN_. _Take Ann out of here_," down every nerve and muscle fiber, Jack Driscoll had understood quite clearly then what Connell had been talking about.

Here however, in this edenic combination of endless park and open-air zoo, the only atmosphere Jack could pick up about the place was one not of malaise, but of magic. Not the conjurer's crude tricks of silk scarves, playing cards, pretty ladies being sawed in half and rabbits being pulled out of hats, but _real_ magic. A living, organic magic.

And it wasn't necessarily in the fact that the birds and beasts could speak and think. It was in the way the tawny eagles, black kites, and Ruppell's griffon vultures soared free in the azure sky. It was in the volley of doves that shot over their heads. It was the bullfrog grunting of the wildebeest ringing out in the clear warm air. In was in the tall, verdant ramparts of the forest to his right. It was the butterflies, hairstreaks and emperors and swallowtails and playboys-one of the few insects he could stand to look closely at or even think about now-that fluttered up like confetti falling in reverse before their feet. It was how the antelope sprung into joyous bucking and chasing and pronking, just for the sheer delight of it, and it made him beam in something close to merriment too.

Jack couldn't have known it, and it would've made no difference to his mood or thoughts if he did, but he and Ann had been transported to this chunk of savanna during the time of year the Maasai call _ilkisirat_, the season of the short rains. If East Africa can be said to have an Indian summer, it's during this time, when the land and its creatures receive one last respite from hardship before having to suffer under "the scourge of the red god," as the Maasai ruefully refer to the dry season. And as humans do with any vacation or welcoming break in the weather, with that dusty time only about two weeks away, every plant, animal, bird, and insect was eagerly making the most of it. Even a pair of naïve strangers couldn't help but pick up on the general tone.

A treacherous little voice in his mind (the tiny killjoy within all of us," as his father had once derisively referred to it) tried to gruffly remind the playwright that he wasn't anywhere close to being out of danger yet. He only had a bone club, fire, and his belt to use as a possible garrote or whip-like nearly every man walking the city streets, he knew only too well from his boyhood how the sharp, stinging lash of a belt buckle across the hindquarters feels, and he didn't think that a lion would exactly enjoy it either-to defend Ann and himself with. He had no gun, and possibly worse, no knife to cut and construct things with.

And didn't every main character in every classic survival story he'd ever read at least have a knife? Robinson Crusoe, the Swiss Family Robinson, Tarzan of the Apes, Rainsford himself-they'd all had _knives._ It felt like all his assets had been steadily stripped away from him by capricious Fate since he'd run out, filled with panicked desperation and a shockingly feverish, leonine courage, into the island's jungle with that party of crewmen and film people alike at his back.

_If I'd been able to know somehow what sort of stunt Carl was going to pull on me for the sake of a film script and where he meant to shoot, I'd have taken Father's old pistol out of the safe in advance_, Jack wryly, wistfully thought, remembering the Colt 1911 Jason Driscoll had used in the Great War, and later presented to his eldest son when he graduated from Columbia University.

Since then, although Jack had never been one for guns and shooting-unlike his youngest brother Brian was for instance-, and fervently hoped never to have to use the weapon, he'd still found a surprising sense of reassurance in knowing he had "A Colt To Ride On!" as some of the ads proclaimed, in his apartment, there to protect himself and his property if need be.

Briefly changing his thoughts, Jack idly wondered if his attorney, Mr. Lithgow, had declared him legally dead by now, and the firearm, along with the rest of "the whole bleeding kaboodle," as Lumpy would've said, had been auctioned off to some lucky opportunist. Hopefully he wasn't the violent type of man.

But his lack of firepower couldn't be helped now at any rate, not until pigs flew. _Come to think of it, since we're in a land of talking beasts, I wouldn't be surprised at all anymore if we suddenly came across one doing just that_, he thought, puffing air out of his big nostrils and smirking in amusement.

_Of course_, he mentally amended, turning to casually focus his gaze on the fever tree and fig wood's edge, _with our luck, it'll be a Jabberwocky or Captain Hook or one of H.G. Wells' Beast Men from The Island of Dr. Moreau that comes flying out at us from those trees instead. _

"And I don't even have the luxury of a vorpal blade," the playwright purred out to himself, feeling his cheeks wrinkle up in amusement at his private joke. He certainly didn't think he would relish having to take on the kind of beast that Tenniel had so frightfully depicted in his illustration, with its snake neck and satanic rabbit/catfish face, with only a bone club in hand.

His comment inadvertently grabbed Ann's attention, and she swiftly turned her head to regard him, brought out of her own self-occupied state. She had been enjoying watching a several dozen strong flock of Fischer's lovebirds, beautiful little parrots that looked like they'd literally flown through a rainbow from top to bottom and the colors had stuck to them in distinct waves, as they twittered and searched for seeds near the wood's edge.

_I think you're every bit as stunning, even in just a dirty slip_, he thought on noticing the enchantment she'd been taking in them.

"The _Jabberwocky_!" she broke in, a fond, nostalgic pleasure resounding in her voice and lighting up her soft Madonna features. "So you've read it too Jack! Mother would read it to my sisters and I all the time. Oh, how I loved that poem so much. I especially liked the picture of the toths," she laughed, referring to Carroll's crazy-looking part badger part lizard creatures, with their corkscrew faces and propensity for sundials.

"Yeah," Jack happily concurred, feeling the corners of his mouth twitch upward in a nostalgic grin as he briefly focused his gaze on a quartet of southern ground hornbills, magisterially huge black birds the size of turkeys with gray-black beaks like pickaxes. Flaccid, bare carmine skin covering their faces and forming pouches at their throats, they unhurriedly walked over the vibrant green grass, snapping up grasshoppers and beetles to be tossed to the back of their mouths.

"The man sure had a talent for making up funny words and animals, didn't he? Kind of makes me wish I chose to write fantasy sometimes instead of writing plays about people with depressing problems or who couldn't control their vices," he offhandedly, reflectively remarked.

"Well, at least you give the masses a balanced view of life that way, and tell them that it's not all sweetness and light," Ann wisely pointed out. "They learn a lesson about the world at any rate."

"True," Jack nodded. "But anyhow," he said, dismissing his digression with a shrug, "_my _favorite poem of his as a boy was _The Walrus and the Carpenter_ ."

As odd as it was, he'd always thought of the poem as an excellent illustration of the human condition, namely how men could be so easily, even fatally, deceived by promises of friendship and good things, as well as how some others-like a certain Carl Denham-cruelly took advantage of that trusting gullibility to satisfy their own ends.

Looking at the gently undulating, endless croquet lawn sprawling before them, and in a fine temper indeed, he was hit with a playful urge of inspiration. Jack was a writer of plays for the stage, not an actor who got up and performed on it. He suffered horribly from stage fright for one thing, and just like the cats he'd owned over the years, hated to look stupid for another-especially in front of his peers.

A faint, close-mouthed smile of embarrassment touched his features briefly as he imagined how his good friends at the now-disbanded Algonquin Round Table would've reacted if they'd seen his feckless little turn as storyteller in front of the painted dogs and Ann, even if it _was_ in an Irishman's blood to do so.

Still though, he'd had live theater training as a matter of course during his studies at Columbia. Jack knew both not only how to recognize when an actor had totally immersed himself into the character, but also how to do the deed with aplomb himself.

Deliberately making his languid, purring voice deep and husky and baritone, he switched the bone club to his right hand, tucked his upper left arm against his ribcage, and grandiosely gestured with his forearm as if it was a flipper, teasingly inquiring of Ann, " 'The night is fine,' the Walrus said, 'Do you admire the view?'" "Although it's actually still broad daylight," he broke out of character to modify.

Putting her free hand on her waist and giving that wonderfully charming giggle he knew and loved to hear, Ann responded, "I absolutely do Jack," showing her porcelain teeth. "But I think any view is good to see as long as I'm with you," she warmly told him, her voice softening.

The warm affection and implied trust contained in her statement made Jack's own soul feel warm in response, and he smiled fondly back at her. His blissful reverie was suddenly interrupted then by a mild curl of hunger in his abdomen, not so powerful that he couldn't stand to go without food for now, but enough to make him desire to eat. Besides, the more food he and Ann took in out here, the healthier they'd ultimately be.

He came to a stop then, curtailing his unhurried walk and raking the forest's edge with his eyes even as he began to approach it at an angle.

"Is something wrong Jack?" Ann asked him questioningly, instinctively drawing her slim form high to look in the same direction, then tentatively following him, coal tipped stick still resting in her hand.

"Not at all," he reassured her. "I'm just feeling a bit hungry again, and hopefully there's more fruit about for us."

It didn't take him very long at all fortunately to find another custard apple bush, conveniently located close to the edge of the grassland and in the farthest point of a kind of U formed by two promontories of trees, giving them an excellent, protected and shaded view of the open landscape before them.

The last time he'd eaten of the fruit, seemingly already an age ago, Jack's hunger had been like a starving rat gnawing at a wooden box of bananas. Throwing his usual scrupulous etiquette to the wind, he'd torn into them like a coyote into carrion. Now though, he ate in a much calmer and more refined fashion, plucking, sitting down, and peeling as he inhaled the sweet, heady smells of fallen leaves and fermenting figs. Sticking the butt end of their fire deep into the soil, Ann joined him to partake of the large bush's crinkly bounty as well, folding her legs under her after she'd filled her arms with several fruits.

_It's almost more like we're having a Sunday picnic in Central Park rather than wandering like vagabonds in the middle of East Africa_, he wryly thought, greatly amused by the incongruity of it all.

The half-panorama they could see was gorgeous, and for a time they both were happy to just be together and watch the wildebeest passing by as they ate, bulls standing like proud equestrian statues in their temporary territories with heads held high, cows and yearlings marching along in loose files with theirs held down, as if they were cart-horses pulling loads. All the while, they kept up their ceaseless droning grunts, cropping grass in the manner of cattle.

With their long white beards, hanging from chins to chests, along with their drawn, almost glum looking faces, and curved horns, the antelope reminded Jack of fairytale wizards with horned helmets, pensively going about their mysterious duties in some castle or forest. Both of them couldn't help also laughing at how truly funny the hoofed beasts looked, and especially their crazy antics.

For these animals, with their long, boxy faces, scraggly, unkept black manes, their fringed throats, and chunky bodies, are the buffoons of the plains, absurd looking and ill proportioned. Their heads are too big and their hindquarters too small. Unlike a deer or bison, their legs are surprisingly thin, seeming almost too rickety to support the weight of their bodies. They have the horns of a weird ox, a goat's beard, the mane of a pony, with black lines on their necks as if trying to extend it, and the sloping hindquarters of a hyena. Wildebeest are misshapen jokes, a bizarre parody of the graceful antelope family to which they belong. If the giraffe is the animal built by a committee, the wildebeest seems like a fusion of the spare parts from all the other hoofed animals.

Their utter silliness is also wonderfully accented by their clownish behavior. Apparently from either sheer high spirits or territorial behavior, they chase each other, run around in circles like circus horses for no obvious reason, randomly collide with each other as if they were atoms, and essentially act like an uncoordinated third-grade dance troupe on a major sugar high. When bulls are asserting or competing over territory, they horn the ground, buck like horses, do stiff-legged leaps, and otherwise cavort around, fly-whisk tails and manes flailing.

Perhaps the ultimate scene in the wildebeest comedy however, is when a bull will leap high into the air while facing a rival broadside, the three hundred pound animal doing a pirouette in midair to come down facing the other as if he was a circus clown or trained monkey parodying a ballet move. Little wonder that Theodore Roosevelt affectionately referred to them as "the fool of the veldt."

Yet they are also enormously successful and astonishingly durable animals, able to keep up with the herd and even run within fifteen minutes of birth. It is estimated that in the Serengeti, there are about a million and a half wildebeest, all participants in one of the most amazing animal migrations on earth, where each one may walk twenty miles in a day, running a gauntlet of lions, hyenas, crocodiles, raging rivers, human hunters, disease, and other dangers. They can run at speeds of close to forty miles an hour, keeping this up for as much as seven or eight miles. The hulking antelope have been known to successfully stand up to cheetahs, hyenas and painted dogs, and rarely even lone lionesses. It is a testament to the true fortitude of the wildebeest, or _Nyumbu ya Montu _as it is known in Swahili, that big game hunters have described it as being "like a little tank on four legs," or "the poor man's Cape buffalo."

Looking at their tousled black manes and deep, wide nostrils, he turned to ask Ann, in a spirit of playful self-deprecation, "They sure do look a lot like me, don't they? Especially in the nose," he added, feeling the corners of his mouth become taut and curve up in yet another grin.

Citron fruit pulp flew in a dozen directions from between Ann's opening lips, and she doubled over in hysterics at his comment before getting a grip on herself again. Still producing light chuckles, she sat up straight once more, pausing to flick her dried hair up and out of her face.

"Maybe, but I personally think you have much better proportions," she good-naturedly told him, lips faintly curving. "Besides, you don't have their horns, and that's a good thing as far I'm concerned."

A bit embarrassed at her praise, he replied in turn, "Having horns would sure make it a chore to get through doors, I know that. The aristocrats probably wouldn't want to associate that much with me either, no matter how good my plays were."

"Jack Driscoll the minotaur," Ann playfully ribbed him, taking another bite of her fruit.

"Be careful what you say Ann," he teasingly countered, pointing at her. "If there are already talking animals here, there's likely magic too, so who knows if you've just jinxed me and now I'm going to wake up a minotaur tomorrow just because you talked about the subject. Then I'll be hideously ugly and you won't want to be with me anymore," he finished, Ann giggling in amused pleasure.

Apparently deciding to accommodate another thought in her brain, Ann's gentle virginal features suddenly became pensive and mildly distant. Before he could ask what was eating her, she meditatively took a bite out of another and softly ventured, "Speaking of talking animals for that matter, what sort of relationship do you think we should encourage between them and us? If any," she added as an afterthought, regarding a herd of convict-striped zebras watching them with that bizarre intelligence in their eyes that they'd already come to accept as a matter of course.

She was looking to him for guidance again, and he'd better provide it fast. And it was an unspoken question that had been hanging like a veil in the back of his head, ever since he'd understood with a shock what sort of fantastical place they'd found themselves in. The time had come, like the half-formed idea for a new play, to hold and examine it.


	9. The Waterhole

**Well, after many promises, overeager guessing, frustration, and even Tommy gun wounds, I've finally gotten up the chapter where we first see our favorite two lion cubs. See if you can detect a slightly altered Fern Gully reference in here too. For readers who might be curious, there is a part in this chapter that heavily refers to one of my all-time favorite classic horror stories, At the Mountains of Madness. Written in the 1920's, all that needs to be known is that it's about an Antarctic expedition that comes across the underground remains of a once-global civilization built by unimaginably ancient but now long vanished extraterrestrial beings dubbed the Old Ones. Creatures built on a pentagonal plan, they are essentially like tall crosses between an elongated barrel and a brittlestar, and are neither animal or plant, but in some nebulous region between the two. There's much more to say about them of course, but what matters for this chapter is that to assist them in their grunt work and construction, the Old Ones created protoplasmic beings called shoggoths, black, concrete-mixer sized polymorphs that were like animated tar and ferciously strong. As befits a mallable pile of protoplasm, shoggoths are always producing and extruding ropes and whips and other appendages of slick black tissue, with myriad eyes constantly developing and opening all over. At any rate, the explorers learn that over time, these strange beasts of burden became every bit as intelligent as the Old Ones, eventually defying, then rebelling against them, leading to a long, drawn-out war of attrition lasting millions of years, resulting in the retreat of the shoggoth's erstwhile masters to their greatest city in the Antarctic. Even then, the struggle for power didn't stop, and long before the first hominds ever appeared, the last Old Ones died. Something has survived though, and at the very end, the narrator and the remaining expedition members flee from a live shoggoth through the tunnels, back to the frozen world of light. As they do, they look back at the twisted beast, and one scientist immediately loses his mind as a result, mumbling occult gibberish and shrieking the word _Tekeli-ki, _for the rest of his days. Now that I've written all that junk, as always happy reading! As an aside, I feel there's something missing/to be worked on here, but I don't know what it is.**

**Finally, observant readers may note that I've taken it upon myself to change the appearance and structure of the waterhole from what we see in the Lion King. This is partly because I wanted to give it a special creative flavor, and partly because, since the movie's animators/concept artists actually went to Africa to sketch the local scenery, I decided to do something similar without directly going in person. For those who are interested, I've based "my" waterhole complex on three geographical locations: Mzima Springs in Kenya's Tsavo National Park, the Musiara Marsh in Kenya's Maasai Mara Game Reserve, and Botswana's Okavango Delta.**

* * *

"_If you want to be in paradise/ simply look around and view it/" _Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory.

"_In my opinion, the strangest animal of all is man."_ Robert Ripley.

_"High in the blue above, swifts whirl and call/ we are down a-dabbling, we are down a-dabbling/ up tails all!" Duck's Ditty,_ from Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame.

After letting the gears in his writer's head turn for a bit, looking casually up at the sky as if for divine inspiration as he chewed, Jack inhaled deeply through his nose before putting forth what seemed like a reasonable idea to him, even if it was uncomfortably manipulative.

_It's not like you'd be using them as badly as Carl though, and it's actually quite communistic for that matter_, he reassured his conscience.

"First of all, it seems from the look of things that we ultimately have to depend on our own strengths out here, more or less. I mean, the birds and beasts all seem nice enough, and so far have clearly been willing to help if we ask or the impulse strikes them, but in the end they also have their own lives to live and paths to follow as we've already found," he said, gesturing towards the grassy expanse with a sweep of his arm for emphasis.

"I really don't like how they're apparently only into short-term selflessness though Jack," Ann whispered, her blue eyes downcast in despairing frustration. "I have faith in you, you know that, but there's so far to go and so much to do and so much _danger_ ahead I don't see how we can do it without their help."

"Well," he responded softly, "maybe things will turn around and we'll get lucky. Even if they don't, you'll always have mine," he reassured, taking her left hand by the wrist and gently enveloping it in both of his own. He would literally make sure the heat and blood he felt throbbing intoxicatingly through that hand would keep on doing so even if it killed him.

Ann smiled at him gently, touching off a little spark of warmth inside before letting her sleek hand slide out and drop. "Yeah, maybe we'll get fortunate when it comes to finding an animal that will look after us for quite a while. And if that doesn't happen, I still think we should try to make friends with or at least get to know as many of them as we can," she optimistically nodded, slowly, thoughtfully.

Although she wasn't directly insinuating it, Jack could tell that she was probably mentally wishing that the massive ape that had protected her was here. He didn't know what exactly to feel about that, so he went ahead and proceeded with the discussion's original, most pressing course.

"I absolutely concur," he affirmed, lightly slapping at another tsetse fly that had landed on his upper right arm. Christ, he hoped he didn't get sleeping sickness or something similarly miserable like that on their account. "Your guess about how we got here and into this incredibly _bizarre_ situation is as good as mine, but what matters is that we just have to cope with it. And I'm sure we can unanimously agree that we can't afford to-"

"pass up anything that could be to our benefit," Ann supplied. Suddenly embarrassed, her hands shot up to her mouth and she contritely said, "Sorry Jack, I shouldn't have interrupted you like that."

Many a man would've chided Ann, but not Jack Driscoll. "Don't worry about it. That's good if you can finish one of my sentences, shows that you're on the ball and we're thinking alike," he said with a grin.

"You're exactly right though. The two of us are stuck out here in a strange place we know absolutely nothing about and we badly need guides at the very least. We definitely won't get all that far or live all that long charging around like a bunch of idiots out here, with no clue what we're doing. So we need to make allies with animals who do have a clue."

"Just don't overdo it when you approach one Jack, and be careful who you pick," Ann implored, clearly having come to and accepted the conclusion that it would be best to stay back while she let him handle the talking. _You're fully welcome to help me out too,_ he chivalrously thought, but didn't say. He was sure she sensed it.

"Believe me, I will," he pointedly assured, slowly gesturing at his chest for emphasis. He remembered all too clearly how Carl-he wondered briefly, with ironic humor if the man was _still _waiting for him and Ann on the beach-had come on far too enthusiastically and strongly towards that chilling half-demon half-delinquent native girl with his "You know you want the chocolate!" foolishness. Looking back through the spyglass of his hindsight, Jack strongly felt that that hideously overbearing and asinine display had been the catalyst for this whole sordid, horrific disaster. At least _he_ knew far better and could actually read human behavior.

"No, I don't think we'll be trying to partner up with any dangerous animals anytime soon," he lightheartedly continued, making Ann chuckle. It was like music to his ears, and Jack decided he wanted the pleasure of hearing it again. "After all, it's always been my understanding that something like a black mamba or a lion or crocodile is pretty hazardous to your health, and I wouldn't count on trying to talk them out of biting," he smirked. The very fact that he was thinking about the concept of even talking an animal out of attacking to begin with hit him as deeply absurd, and he gruffly chuckled again.

"To say the least," Ann choked out as she giggled wildly. "Can you imagine that Jack? 'Hello Mr. Crocodile, we'd like you to take us across-' SNAP!" she said, clashing her slender forearms and splayed hands together for emphasis.

"Not exactly an intelligent idea," Jack grinned in agreement. "What _is_ intelligent though is doing all we can to form friendships or at least bond with the others, even if they'll always part ways with us in the end."

"That could literally end up being a lifesaver," Ann melodiously agreed in understanding. "And I of all people should know," she added.

"Exactly," Jack replied, a shockingly unexpected level of admiration and appreciation at what the great gorilla had done on Ann's behalf flooding his body, as difficult as it was to reconcile with what he'd suffered literally at the beast's hands. But that was already long ago and _very_ far away indeed.

"There's a limit to that too of course," he continued. "I mean, we shouldn't be shamelessly going around and begging every single creature we see to do us a favor like we were panhandlers or be 'our special friend' obviously," causing Ann to break into that chiming laughter, "but if we can have an animal guard us while we sleep, hunt meat for us, give us a ride like Indlovu did, teach us which plants and fruits are safe to eat, and especially tell us about the country, that would be a rich dividend in itself."

"And my goodness, how it already has been," Ann wisely stated, as she finished pureeing a big bite of custard apple. "Even if he was a bit too optimistic about the lions as help, we'd have never known that these fruits were good and safe to eat if it wasn't for Indlovu telling us."

"Not to mention the fact that he acted as a God-sent mount when I felt far more dead than alive," he neutrally stated.

"Yes," Ann whispered, guilt and sympathy shadowing her blue eyes as she remembered. "Lord, I'm so sorry that it-I-put you in a state like this," shuffling forward on skinned knees to delicately reach out and stroke his uninjured shoulder.

"There's absolutely nothing to be sorry for or about Ann," he softly yet sternly told her, taking her hand in his own. He did not want her to be dwelling on such things, so Jack breathed deeply, reassuringly stroking the smooth skin inside her wrist in titillating circles with his thumbs, making Ann smile in contentment before he reluctantly let go and returned to the closing act of their serious "animal attraction" chat.

"But of all the relationships we could possibly form with these magically-gifted animals, what would _really_ be a boon for us is if we could somehow help one of the animals out directly. You know, give it refuge from an attacking predator, help a lost one to find its home or family again, give it some food or water, or rescue it from a dangerous situation, something like that. Then we have ourselves an instant ally in addition to doing a good deed," he smiled crookedly.

"Hopefully you'd be doing that more out of the goodness of your heart than selfish motives though Jack Driscoll," Ann remarked with a telling sideways look, eyebrows arched.

For an instant, what Ann was implying about him, that Jack would go and help animals in distress purely for his own Machiavellian purposes, was like a shocking, stinging blow to the face. She was basically saying that behavior made him no better than Carl!

"Hey," he fervently protested, standing up and holding his hands in front of him, "for crying out loud Ann, you _know_ I would help one anyw-"

But his gabbling insistence of altruism was cut short in confusion when Ann broke out laughing at him gleefully. "I'm only kidding Jack! Don't worry, I've read enough of your plays to know that your heart and soul is firmly on the side of the weak and downtrodden, including the animals. It's just that you're so funny when you're casting kittens though and I couldn't help myself!" she puckishly laughed with twinkling eyes.

Caught firmly between profound relief and embarrassment, Jack gave a sheepish, downcast smile as he sat down in the leaves, saying "Glad you took note of that. And that I slay you when I get all worked up over something apparently."

"You're welcome," she supplied. "And I understand what you're saying. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?"

Trying to preserve at least some dignity after that, Jack knowingly responded, "And how." He finished up, "So basically, here's what the bottom line works out to: The animals here know far more about this land and what it takes to survive out here than we ever could hope to. If we can form a friendship with an animal, or come across one that needs our help, for Christ's sake let's not allow the opportunity to pass us by."

"That would be just like seeing a $20 bill on the sidewalk and walking past anyway," Ann agreed, thoughtfully nodding.

The sun at their backs was getting steadily lower then, Jack could feel it. He moved his aching arm to reflexively check his Rolex Oyster-if he ever got back to New York, he'd be giving one heck of an astonishing testament to the product's durability-and compensating for time zones, realized with a shock that it was almost ten past five. "Good Christ!" he exclaimed. Where had the time _gone_ for God's sake?

"Ann, we've really got to get going and reach that waterhole soon," he pronounced in a no-nonsense tone, picking up his limb bone club and then helping his dame to her feet as she carefully grabbed the coal-tipped stick.

If Jack's forced servitude on the Venture had taught him anything about the passage of time in different regions of the world, it was that twilight came and ended _fast_ in the tropics. In spite of the fact that the cloudless sky was still an airy, bright blue, they probably had from forty-five minutes to about an hour before the last of the sun's blazing orb sunk below the horizon, and Jack knew that Ann knew about the urgency of finding shelter too by the way she broke into a hurried walk beside him.

As if to remind them that stumbling around in the dark wasn't the only motivation he and Ann had for getting a move on, and that now the clock truly was ticking, from the southeast came the ominous, wood-file grunting of a leopard. Stopping in her tracks, Ann gasped while Jack took a few steps in the direction of the caller; dread exploding in his blood as he strained his ears. The spotted cat seemed to be calling from about a mile away, maybe a mile and a half, so they weren't in immediate danger of being attacked or having a sudden encounter.

Nonetheless, utterly galvanized by the wild sound, Jack wasted no time in breaking into a hurried, apprehensive trot along the strip of now thinning riparian forest with Ann at his heels. _I sure don't want to end up as cat food_, he anxiously thought. Even though Jack had always been far more of a "people person," and his choices of literature reflected that, he'd still read more than enough about Africa and its creatures to know that when the lights went out-then, then it was unquestionably the hour of the night beast. Now, with that time of the hunter and the hunted fast approaching, the beautiful savannah suddenly seemed almost threatening.

As if it couldn't be content with merely sending them an auditory hint at Death's veiled, yet always constant presence in this land, a more physical reminder of the battle for existence suddenly literally sprang out at them courtesy of the African bush.

"_SNAKE!_" a chorus of a few dozen slurring voices shrieked from a ways behind them. Giving a piercing scream, Ann immediately leapt up into the air like a gymnast and pressed her slim body against his own as Jack brandished the bone club like a baseball bat, even as he immediately turned in the noise's direction, fully prepared to use it in earnest.

As he did, his eyes registered a flurry of wings as at about a third of the distance between them and the trees, and maybe forty yards behind them, a flock of red-eyed doves exploded into flight in a profusion of gray-brown bodies as a black mamba, seven and a half lethal feet of sleek silver death, shot into their midst like a cat, plucking one of the birds _out of the air_! Once the fangs connected, there was no chance at all for the dove, dying immediately from the powerful venom even as the snake settled back to earth. "Jesus Christ!"

The speed and fierceness of the reptile's lunge was nothing less than absolutely astonishing, and for just a moment or two, Jack was vividly reminded of the cool, effortless, athletic precision that the creatures he'd self-labeled _Aquilasuchus_ had shown to such lethal effect in the stampede. He still couldn't believe that he'd shoulder-rammed one and gotten away with it.

Crazily but perhaps naturally, it occurred to him that the friend he'd done it for would be overjoyed to have filmed this right now.

"Oh my God Jack!" Ann gasped, equally astonished herself by the dart-worthy rapidity of the black mamba, now holding onto the dove and shifting it around. "That was so damned _fast_. Poor bird."

"Looks like the naturalists aren't kidding about the mamba's speed," he stated in dry surprise. "Or venom."

The disbelieving amazement he'd felt now bleeding off, Jack determined it was probably prudent to leave while the snake's short lethal fangs were otherwise engaged (and the mamba had now engulfed the dove's head and neck at this point) continuing on as Ann gave one last look of both morbid, revolted fascination and sympathetic distress towards such a gentle creature's demise before whispering, "Poor thing," and following into step behind him.

Watching the black mamba's kill had undeniably been an eye-opener to the Pridelands' dangers in living color, and Jack told himself, nerves shaking as he replayed the image, shaking his head as well, _Incredible. Sure thankful those fangs didn't connect with either of us. Jeez, that was so quick, too quick for Ann or I to ever hope to dodge. _Yes, he sure did yearn for a gun right now.

Since Ann was now wisely and understandably repeatedly looking back over her carven shoulder for more serpents, Jack decided he too could wisely take the time to pay _close _attention to their surroundings instead of her for a bit. He'd always been an extremely observant man, one who excelled at taking in all the physical details, subtle nuances, and then richly expressing similar subtleties through his typewriter keys.

_I actually got that to rhyme, _he realized with delighted pleasure at the coincidence, feeling his facial muscles tighten in amusement before snapping out of it. When you wrote for a living after all, such attentiveness just came with the territory. This time though, just like in Skull Island's jungles, what Jack usually did to get inspiration or to help make words flow beautifully along would now have to be done in deadly earnest.

If he wasn't hyperaware and didn't watch his back, Jack Driscoll knew that he was likely to pay a dear price, especially in thick brush or long grass. Still, at least there were Ann's eyes and ears in addition to his. He'd also always been good at "mental multitasking" as his father called it, and let one part of him slip into dark ruminations about unforgiving nature while another stood sentry duty as he and Ann walked over the short grass.

Even before the horror of Skull Island, unlike some of his friends and colleagues, Jack had never been the type of man to fall prey to the delusion that nature was always all one big garden, ripe for enjoyment, and couldn't also have a very dark side to her indeed. His youngest brother, Brian, was every bit in love with hunting as Jack was with theater, and when they got together, he would often excitedly spout with an excited passion an account of how he saw wild animals attack each other or turn on their human tormentors.

There had been an especially unsetting instance four years ago, Jack remembered, when Brian Driscoll had proudly shown his shocked kin pictures of him posing with a particularly large Colorado grizzly he'd only wounded at close range with the first shot, but finished with another, dropping it only two yards from his boots. You would've thought an ashen-faced Molly Driscoll was going to have a heart attack when her youngest son said that.

"And _that_ is why I only hunt birds and deer," Father had whispered off the cuff to Uncle Martin.

Then too, even if they'd actually had the remotest scrap of real luck and the Venture had never gotten within a hundred miles of Skull Island, Jack would already have seen more than enough from the steamer's deck to reinforce his knowledge that nature could sure be savagely grim at times. Maybe two hundred miles or so west of the Azores, he'd watched, thunderstruck, as dozens of sleek common dolphins and powerful yellowfin tuna, seven-foot fish built like artillery shells and just as fast, tore into a school of mackerel, making the water boil as they hit the school like dynamite from below while Cory's shearwaters and brown boobies plunged into the sea like darts for their share.

In the Red Sea, he'd witnessed a trio of tiger sharks, all different sizes, ripping at a freshly killed green sea turtle, sending out billows of black blood as the huge striped fish rammed their flattened salamander heads into the shell, and finally, incredibly, taking brutal bone-crunching bites out of the green turtle's shell itself. It was as if it had been nothing more than porcelain, everyone waiting their turn as the sharks stared impassively with their bleary black eyes. And then there'd been that fatal island, close to a damn temple to nature red in tooth and claw…

Jack's tousled black hair flopped as he slightly shook his head dismissively. That was irrelevant, he reminded himself. At least the dangers out here were actually familiar, could be anticipated and prepared for, not creatures that should've died out millions of years before or were abominations right out of a Hieromyus Borsch painting. The devil that you did know after all, truly was better then the one that you didn't. And for Christ's sake, the first men had called these plains-well, similar ones, he wryly corrected himself-home sweet home. If they were able to make it out here with just sticks and stone tools, he and Ann could too for a while.

Suddenly, the forest ended completely then, except for a few scattered trees. As they kept moving, the soft rush of water could be heard. Then, at the same time it registered on his vision, Ann said, "It's a waterfall Jack," in a tone of delighted surprise. There was a short, twenty-five foot bluff facing them, over which the river poured in a sparkling cascade.

"Quite beautiful," the playwright affirmed. But there was regretfully little time to really take the sight in, and after taking another good drink Jack skirted the low bluff, even though his host of bruises sent out throbbing signals of pain as he climbed to the higher ground.

It was at that moment, as Jack turned around after helping Ann up in turn, that two majestic, awesome sights boldly rose up and silently competed for their attention, Pride Rock and the great marsh-ringed waterhole in all their glory. Pride Rock won out by a landslide.

"Holy Mackerel!" he exclaimed in hushed awe, sweeping his eyes to the great monolith's top, then back to the bottom.

"Oh my goodness," Ann stated, equally impressed herself. And it wasn't terribly difficult to understand why. Pride Rock, this great rough-hewn granite island looming out of a sea of green grass, had to be half the height of the Chrysler Building back home, Jack estimated, a quick flash of homesickness striking him at the thought.

Rising slowly but magisterially from the left in a curve feathered with trees, it culminated in a thick, square-topped column before terminating in a sheer, slicing drop that was only punctuated by a great tilted spur of stone sticking out in front like a gigantic upturned hand, supported by a smaller one below.

_It would make a great outdoor stage, _Jack approvingly thought.

Oddly, it reminded him for some reason of the hymnal's Rock of Ages, all the way from boyhood Masses.

He remembered how Indlovu had so calmly, understatedly told them, _You will be able to see Pride Rock close by. _Well of course. You'd have to be either blind or hopelessly addled in the head not to notice something like this.

"That's one _very_ huge rock indeed, isn't it Jack," an impressed Ann commented, arching her slim eyebrows for emphasis. "Magnificent too," she added appreciatively with a distant smile.

"Definitely quite the natural castle," he agreed, affectionately slipping his arm around her waist. For a few moments, feeling her body against his own and enthralled by the massive upside-down flying buttress of stone before them, he couldn't help nurturing a beautiful fantasy, one where the place was just sitting there to be occupied, all for them. In those granite ramparts, they'd live and love forever, with the creatures of this enchanted place as their partners and playmates. He would be the devoted king, and Ann his beatifically gorgeous queen.

_Come back to reality Jack._ _The place belongs to the lions, and they'll likely severely harm you at best if you go there._

Although he couldn't see them from where he was standing, Jack idly wondered if the big cats could see and smell them even at this distance. Probably, he guessed. Still lifted high on the dregs of his fancy, he turned, bent, and flicked Ann's bedraggled ringlets aside before putting his lips on that ecstatically smooth cheek. Without any hesitation, she giggled in surprised delight, and then responded in kind.

Thrilled at the dear gesture, Jack told her approvingly, "You sure always know when to pay cash now and how to do it, don't you?"

She nodded happily with flushed cheeks, and together, they turned away from the Rock of Ages and went instead for the great cool patch of green and blue, laughing.

* * *

The waterhole proved to be far larger than Jack had thought it would be. It was about half the size of the lake in Central Park, fringed by a dense halo of hip high dark green reeds, bristling like pens from a cup or porcupine quills. There were also lush stands of even taller papyrus, their triangular stalks topped by feathery, spearmint green heads shaped like upside-down bells, serving as perches for the tiny, jewel-like reed frogs, strikingly painted in pleasing patterns of brownish or muted earthy colors. 

Interspersed like sentinels sticking out of the cooling stain of marsh, as if to drive home the point that it was an enchanting oasis, were phoenix, borassus, and date palms, their fronds waving lightly in the wind like gigantic plumes. Walking over to where the river drained out, Jack could clearly see that the waterhole was spring-fed, as clear as gin save for a light, unobtrusive accent of green-tan.

Finally, like moons around a planet, there were five much smaller spring-fed lily ponds that drained into the large waterhole, each bearing a floating garden of exotic white lotuses and blue lotuses. Despite the more pressing desire for another good drink he felt, Jack thought admiringly that it was almost like an Egyptian tomb painting come to life, complete with a whole host of birds.

And oh, were there birds! Blue and orange malachite kingfishers swung like electric sparks on the reeds, while pied kingfishers, sporting harlequin livery of black and white, hovered fluttering like huge moths above the water before plunging for frogs, tadpoles, and small fish. Greater and lesser flamingos, stunning shell-pink geese on ludicrously long, scaly legs, contemplatively waded or filtered water through their upside-down smiles. Jacanas, diademed with forehead shields of sky, used their splayed, bizarrely ultra-long toes to support their rufous bodies as they walked over the lotus leaves.

Gray herons, looking almost exactly like the great blues Jack had often seen back home, stalked catfish and frogs in the shallows as platoons of solemn storks, yellow-billed, white, open-billed, and the resplendently majestic saddlebills, sedately marched with a determined focus through the water, each seeking their own favored prey to snap at. Hammerkops, their hammer-shaped heads and thick, almost slicked-back head plumes giving them a rather misshapen appearance, shuffled for tadpoles and insects at the water's very edge, while glossed hadada ibises occasionally stopped to bugle out their namesake cry-_ha-daa-daa-daaa-_as they probed the mud alongside their sacred ibis relatives.

Further out swam small parties of huge African white pelicans, looking surprisingly aristocratic in spite of their comic neck pouches, and swan-sized spur-winged geese, holding their rear ends high above the water like a lady afraid to get the hem of her dress wet. Among them swam flotillas of Egyptian geese, knob-billed ducks, yellow-billed ducks, and red-billed teal, bobbing and dabbling on the sparkling blue surface.

_Now this,_ he thought in impressed awe at the place's beauty, _is just the kind of place I wouldn't have minded in the least if Carl wanted to camp out at to shoot film. _

"Look at all the hippos Jack!" Ann eagerly pointed out, as she carefully stuck the butt end of the firestick in the soft wet earth. He'd already noticed. It was quite hard not to really. Most prominent of all the aquatic creatures, twenty-five or so of the rotund giants were contentedly lolling and rolling like sections of logs, with that air of laid-back cheeriness one often sees in the pleasantly plump. Water sprayed into the air in a shower of crystal droplets as the hippos twirled their little ears like pinwheels, waves surging from their purple-brown bulk, as they'd surface to breathe. A big bull threw back his massive head, opening his great ivory temple of a mouth to reveal tusks as long as Jack's forearm in a king-sized yawn.

Ever since he'd first seen them at the Bronx Zoo as a boy, Jack had always been fond of hippos. They seemed to have just the perfect life, soaking up sun, playing in the water, dozing and floating around with nothing especially pressing on their minds, sparring good-naturedly like two yearling calves were doing right now, and always seeming to bear an incongruous Mona Lisa smile on their bristly faces. He knew of course, that they were deceptively swift beasts and perhaps one of the biggest man-killers in Africa, but it sure was hard to believe that from such placid, playful behavior.

_Jimmy would be utterly thrilled to be seeing this_, he reflectively thought, a slicing strike of pain touching his heart from his last sight of the young sailor before the playwright deliberately forced the brutal memory away. Although he didn't know about Ann, Jack did know that _he_ sure felt filthy and yes, physically polluted from the island, especially that stinking hellish dark gorge that had left far too many physical reminders on his shirt and skin, which he hastily wanted to be rid of with a plunge in the drink.

Still, he wasn't going to throw caution to the wind with these rounded behemoths around. He remembered hearing that when a person was killed by a hippo on land, it was usually either because they got between the panicked animal and the water it was trying to reach, or they got too close to one resting on or close to shore.

Letting the bone club drop with a deliberate thud to the grass, he told Ann, who was as equally absorbed in rapture at this magical sight as he was, "I'm going to go down and let the hippos see that we're here, talk to them even so that they don't feel spooked and tolerate us. Don't worry baby, I'll be careful," he immediately added on seeing the apprehension dawning on her ivory face.

"Just be so careful then Jack," she pleaded, although he could also detect a reluctant, cautious trust in his judgment. "Even I've heard of how dangerous these animals can be."

"Hey don't worry," he told her gently, playfully, "I'll be a regular diplomat. When you rub shoulders with so many, it just grows on you after all." He reached out and linked his muscular fingers on one hand with her delicate ones, both squeezing in a gesture of mutual worry and reassurance before letting go.

Breaking away, Jack went down to the shining water on a hippo trail with Ann a prudent distance behind him. He intended to clap his hands to get the herd's attention, then introduce himself and Ann, then exchange pleasantries if the hippos seemed to be okay with their presence, which they likely would be, ending it up with a satisfying bath in the spring. A, B, C, D. That's a wrap folks.

Suddenly then, he sensed Ann going rigid behind him, saying in a monotone of hesitation and anxiety and confusion and disbelief, "Jack, look what's in that flat place in the reeds."

"Which one?"

"Over to the left, maybe six feet away."

After a moment of scanning, Jack saw a collection of objects, filling him with both astonished gratitude and also some fear at what it implied at the same time. There was a leopard tortoise's shell countersunk in the dirt, filled with a pasty, whitish herbal substance, heavily dappled with green and brown spots and swirls. Medicine? Food?

There was a one-foot square piece of some thick, pebbled hide, most likely rhino or warthog, he guessed. A pair of actual petite shoes, crude but durable things made of reeds and apparently lined with feathers inside sat waiting to be used, while most surprisingly of all, a huge calabash sat filled with hot water, steam curling from the surface.

Knowing full well whom the intended recipient was, Ann moaned in pure thankfulness, "Shoes. Thank Heaven Jack, I can walk without hurting my feet again," her eyes misting.

"Oh my God. Oh my God," Jack repeated incredulously as he stepped forward, even now not fully trusting what he was seeing. But it was all very real, just like a gold coin, seemingly sent from heaven, would still be to the vagrant with the incredible luck to find it on the street. Suddenly Jack Driscoll had a lot of pressing questions exploding into his mind, all of them begging and competing to be answered, analyzed.

Despite the fact that they were mind-bogglingly, insanely sapient and able to speak fluent English for Christ's sake, even the animals here couldn't possibly be able to understand how to control fire, heat water, weave reeds, or mix something together out of plant products. Could they? Despite the fact that Jack always seemed to be receiving a sharper shovel just when he'd thought that he'd finally reached the very bottom of lunacy these days, he really didn't think so. Only men could use tools, do these things.

So that meant there were people here. People who had to still be close by.

_But what kind of people?_

"You know what this means, don't you Jack?" Ann asked in hesitant wonder, looking up into his eyes.

"Yes," he nodded empathetically. "We're not alone out here."

He strongly hoped it was a group of natives with a far gentler disposition than the last one. Not at all for the first time, the images of black, spidery creatures more demon than human, hideously scarred and pierced, glaring with an incomprehensible malice and reeking of old fish, sweat, salt and oil, abruptly leapt up out of his protesting psyche to simultaneously fill his soul with profoundly numbing fear and red-black rage at the recollections Jack so badly wished he could forget. The worst of it wasn't even how, after the explosive agony at the back of his skull and that feeling of falling forever, he'd thought that they'd just ensured even memories would be denied to Jack Driscoll permanently. It was what they'd done and tried to do to Ann, the angel and nymph and most beautiful woman in the world standing beside him, heartlessly staking her out like Andromeda for Cetus, a goat for a tiger.

Jack had taught as a boy both by Sunday school and his parents that it wasn't nice or becoming to feel hatred towards anyone or anything, and for the most part still kept to that philosophy. Even after what the chubby movie producer had pulled, making him into an indentured servant and prisoner on the steamer, he still didn't even loathe Carl.

All the same, the cannibal savages were unquestionably an exception, especially _her_, the demonic ranting hag. It was just as well for the raisin-faced female shaman that Jack had been far too preoccupied with his frenzied, wild, dash through the glowing village to reach Ann in time, and hadn't crossed paths with her to begin with. If things had been different-well, Jack would soon both have violated the social commandment that you never harm a woman, and gotten blood on his hands a la Macbeth.

Even now, if he somehow met Ann's would-be destroyer again, he'd still do the same deed, as shocking and profoundly disturbing as even he found the thought to be. Nor would Jack necessarily be quick about it.

_Good Jesus Mr. Driscoll, you're sure getting unusually bloody-minded, aren't you? Should be working for Capone if you can have an attitude like that,_ he told himself in dumbfounded amazement. And it certainly wasn't by any means a good place to mentally be dwelling, so he flung it aside. Besides, if there _were_ hostile savages lurking in the reeds, there was no way in fiery hell that they'd be going and putting out _shoes_ and simple medical items for these white strangers.

"Do you think they're still around here Jack?" Ann questioned, even as she stood erect and shaded her blue eyes with her hand to scan the area. "We really should thank them at the least, even if they don't understand us."

"Yeah," the writer agreed, drawing his numb body up in imitation of her as his vision also raked the surrounding marsh. There was neither hide nor hair of a human figure, and nor did he see any indication of a fresh gap or disturbance in the reeds that might mean someone was present but hiding. The heated water was steaming profusely though, so it had to have been put there only minutes, maybe seconds, before he and Ann arrived. Yet at their tallest the reeds were waist high at best. A man would find it quite difficult to sneak away without eventually showing himself or making a rustle of some kind.

Perplexed, Jack decided that they had to still be there, laying low until he and Ann had accepted their indirect ministrations and then finally left. Cautiously, making an effort to be neutral and nonthreatening in his tone, he called out, "Hello? Is anyone around here? We'd really like to thank you for putting things out to help us. We don't mean you any harm. Hello?" He felt confident that even if they couldn't comprehend a word of English, they'd probably at least pick up on the intimations of his speech.

"Let me try Jack," Ann volunteered. "They might be intimidated by you and maybe they'll feel more at ease if I ask them to come out."

Gesturing outward with his palms, then pointing at his chest, Jack chuckled in self-deprecation, "Trust me Ann, I'm many things, but being intimidating is not one of them. In fact, I'm the least daunting person I know," giving a wide grin.

She still did have a point though, and he sat down, listening to Ann give out a few feminine, melodious queries herself of "Hello? We won't hurt you. Anyone there?" before putting her lovely hands on her hips in puzzlement, shaking her head in disappointment before returning to Jack and saying as he stood up, "Guess they're long gone. A pity."

"Well, maybe we'll run into them eventually and get the chance to thank them then."

"True. We'd better start making use of the hot water before it gets cold though," she proclaimed decisively.

As he began to sit down again, Ann suddenly said, "Jack, did you just hear something?" as she slowly turned to the right.

"No," he replied, following her gaze himself. But then Jack thought he also detected a sound as well, one of two objects knocking together with a pleasant sort of _clock_. It came a second time, and Ann said, "Now do you hear it Jack?"

"Yes, I do." Staring hard at the place it seeming to originate from, Jack suddenly saw, or to be more specific thought he saw, two spheres bearing earth-toned colors bound to the top of a stick, like gourds almost. But it only registered for half a moment at most, then was gone, leaving two puzzled humans to blink their eyes and wonder silently if they'd really seen or heard anything to begin with.

"Well, if it was anything it's gone now," Jack dismissed, turning back to the shell full of that slick paste. He was pretty sure it wasn't food, but curiously dipped his fingertips into the substance anyway and sniffed them to make certain. There was a strongly astringent, sharp, surgery theater scent to the ointment. Definitely medicinal.

"I'm going to test it on myself first," he informed Ann, "see if it helps at all."

"All right," she replied calmly.

Jack touched it to his shoulder wound in a firm line. It was like being touched with nitric acid.

"Good Jesus Christ!" he yelled out at the iodine sting, successfully getting the attention of every creature within the vicinity. "Aww, that burns like a damned fire."

Even as he finished though, he felt the stinging begin to melt away. That meant that there also had to be a painkiller of some kind in this stuff. _Too bad it didn't come first._

Recovering from the shock, Ann said with surprised dryness, "I think that must mean it works then."

"Like hell it sure does," Jack grunted.

Smiling impishly, Ann shook her head in teasing disbelief, saying, "I'm surprised at you Jack Driscoll. You'll charge like an elephant through an island of horrors and ram meat-eating dinosaurs with your shoulder, but you can't stand a little antiseptic."

"You'll be thinking differently when it's eating into your raw flesh," he mumbled in response. "We'd best take a good bath in that pond first though."

"The more dirt and filth we can get off and out of our wounds, the better," Ann wholeheartedly agreed. "I've seen people die from infected cuts or lose limbs."

"Then let's get to it," he said, turning to go down to the shore-and seconds later finding himself facing a whole wall of hippos, zebras, gazelles, and all the place's birds. In water, hippos seem quite a bit smaller than they actually are, and can be difficult to take seriously. But now that they were out of it, inflated dirigibles of flesh fully exposed for all the world to see, they were terrifyingly, shockingly huge, tiny froggy eyes regarding the two humans from atop three-foot long heads. For several moments, Jack thought with a consuming terror that he was going to be chomped in half by those tusks as Ann screamed and got behind his outstretched arms, trusting him to shield her as best he could. Running would've done them precious little good.

One large hippo cow though, opened her jaws and told them in a grunting, drawling voice, "Don't be frightened of us. We've just never seen humans in the flesh before, and we're all curious about you."

"Yeah, everything's okay. None of us are going to bite," a young zebra stallion confirmed, showing his horsy teeth in a sociable grin that still contained a hint of cautious nervousness.

And indeed, all the animals were staring at him and Ann with expressions of utter incredulity in their soft dark eyes. Jack was almost certain that he must've looked the exact same way when he first laid eyes on Skull Island's dinosaurs, laid eyes on the ape.

Jesus Christ, he and Ann must themselves be like the dinosaurs to them! If he weren't having this prickly feeling like they were uncomfortably under siege, and trying to get a hold of his still shaking, startled nerves, Jack would've laughed wildly at the bizarre irony. _Apparently, we're inadvertently causing quite a bit of consternation for all the locals. _

Relaxing first behind him, Jack felt Ann's muscles loosen first, feeling her slowly back up before she said with distinct trepidation from over his left shoulder, "You've never seen humans before? Ever?"

"No," a young hippo bull responded in awe, "we never have. Until now."

"Then in that case, how did you even know what we are, much less what to call us?" Jack asked through his dissipating tension. "And fellas, this is also a bit too close for our comfort, so could everyone please back up a little? Not to be disrespectful, we just need some breathing room you see," he kindly added.

"Sure thing," a zebra stallion politely said with a simple head bob, backing into his mares as the other large animals followed suit. Feeling less cramped, Jack joined Ann in a calming exhalation of freed contentment.

"We've heard rumors, stories about your kind, and everyone in the Pridelands knows of someone who claims to have seen a human being before, but ultimately we thought it was all made-up," an awed gazelle doe continued in answer to Jack's question.

_Like Bigfoot,_ Jack thought with great amusement. "Well, if you creatures have been living lives innocent of humans, I'm betting you have quite a few questions to ask of us," he stated, looking at the ever sinking sun in the west.

"I sure do," a yellow-billed stork pointedly said.

"But first," Jack continued, trying to be as diplomatic and gentle as possible, "Ann and I have really, truly had an absolutely horrible time before we came to this place. No offense, but we need to clean up and take care of our wounds first before we'll be doing much talking."

"Say no more," the dominant hippo bull acquiesced. "You're even welcome to bathe as much as you want in our pond," he graciously offered as Jack noted his eyes taking in the host of scratches and bruises covering his body and Ann's. "How does that sound? My name's Kiboko, by the by."

Beaming in grateful pleasure, Jack told the hippo, "Sounds wonderful indeed. My name's Jack Driscoll."

"And I'm Ann Darrow. Nice to meet you Kiboko," Ann told him.

"You humans have two names. Very interesting," a spur-winged goose pondered.

"Odd, isn't it?" Jack neutrally said. "Ann and I would like our bath right now though, and since we're creatures that highly value it, we'd also kind of enjoy some privacy too. Just one of those weird things about our kind."

A bit confused at this human concept, but happy to concede to their wishes and not at all perturbed, the animals backed off and more or less returned to their previous activities as best they could manage. If a lady hadn't been present, Jack would've probably just gone and unhesitatingly swum in the nude. That wasn't at all an option with Ann as a swimming partner however. He'd be keeping his button-up boxers on today.

"Jack," Ann offered with a troubled, please-allow-me-to-assist quality to her voice, "let me help you out of your clothes."

Ordinarily, the writer would've been completely taken aback at the idea of a woman offering to help him disrobe. But here, with his body numb and throbbing and tender, shirt and pants glued to his skin with his own blood, Jack was unutterably, profoundly grateful for the offer.

"Just make it quick and try not to have it hurt too much when the shirt comes off," he told her in an indirect affirmation.

Each article of clothing he took off revealed a canvas of horrors. The shoes were first, being pushed off with a squelching, sucking noise to reveal socks plastered with and reeking of sweat and mud and fluid from blisters.

The socks themselves were next, causing Jack to grit his teeth and give out droning moans of hurt as the fabric rolled away in Ann's hands to reveal feet covered in blisters and scabs, chafed and smelling like cheese in a grave.

The trousers at least were much less of a painful chore. All Jack had to do was unbuckle his belt, slip it out, and push downward while Ann, looking with anguish at his feet, pulled at the legs. The watch was duck soup.

"Now here comes the fun part," Jack sardonically muttered to Ann before raising his arms in a surrender gesture so she could help him out of the war casualty his shredded silk shirt had become. It was sticking, and it was a painful process, making Jack gasp "Great Jesus Christ! Damn it, that hurts like molten metal!" even as a remorseful, misting Ann told him, "God Jack, I'm so sorry. Forgive me for doing this to you."

The undershirt's shedding brought both the agony and the full display of horrors inflicted on Jack's body to an abhorrent, sickeningly vivid climax. Once the irresistible shriek of pain from his wounds being excruciatingly reopened died on the breeze, Ann just stared in shocked revulsion at the devastation wrought on his body, hypnotized even as she wept in horrified grief. Now they could both see in all their gruesome glory the long, thin parallel red rake marks, like the wounds a double hook without barbs might make when dragged across the skin, and the short ragged gashes, similar to ones that would result from taking a pinch of your flesh and cutting it with a pinking shears.

He was mottled, dappled with livid multicolored bruises, almost more like the skin of a shaved leopard than a man's. Jack had had no idea it was even possible for human skin to exhibit such a multitude of colors.

Ann started to speak, but Jack looked her in the eyes and said as loudly as he could with his own, _No. Please don't make me talk or even think about it, at least for a couple months._ If he had to dwell on it for too long, Jack knew that he would lose his lunch, lose his composure, or lose his marbles. Quite likely, it would be all of the above.

Howard Lovecraft might have written an Antarctic Gothic thriller called _At The Mountains of Madness_, but the writer Jack Driscoll had barely escaped with his life from a _gorge_ of madness, one inhabited by the types of abominations that should've rightfully stayed within the pages of Lovecraft's works. He'd certainly never be able to read about the shoggoth again without the nauseating memories of how Lumpy died and his killers coming back to make him quake, that was for sure. For the love of Christ, it was a goddamn miracle that _he _hadn't come out of there wild-eyed himself and shrieking, _Tekeli-ki!_, at the top of his lungs.

Mercifully, Ann got the message and showed compassion by omission, settling instead for a gentle, commiserating embrace, showing care not to touch his wounds and bruises even as she cradled the back of his head in her thrillingly soft hands and kissed his crown. The display of Ann's mutual care for him sent a thrill of warm happiness through Jack's blood, and he favored her with a thin smile before saying, "Thank you doll," and taking her hand to help as he stood erect in just boxers.

At the waterhole's edge, mud coolly squelching and oozing between his toes as he began to wade out into its blissful coolness, fish darting before him, Jack realized with puzzlement that Ann wasn't following.

"Don't you want to join me?"

"I do Jack, but it's just that I'm wearing only this slip, and…well…you see…It'll stick when wet." Not able to say anymore, she stared at the mud with cheeks flushed and a hand on her face in mortification. "I'd just feel so ashamed in front of you."

Without even thinking, Jack softly told her, "Ann, I think you have a gorgeous body. _Nothing _about it could ever be shameful." In an instant, the full realization of what he'd just said hit the playwright with the force of a shotgun blast as his cheeks became fire. "Oh jeez Ann, don't take it like it sounded! Forget what I said, I just meant that-"

Recovered from the shock, Ann assured him, "I know what you meant Jack. That's very sweet. A bit blunt perhaps, but very sweet," calming him with a charmed and charming smile.

"Someday, I am going to reach my goal of thinking before I speak," Jack muttered through his fingers.

"Don't bother. That's one of the things I like about you Jack Driscoll. Not to mention that I think you have a lovely body too," immediately planting her fingertips on her own lips and giving Jack a sideways, coyly girlish look.

His cheeks growing even hotter, Jack shifted his weight and wryly offered, "You know, I think we should get to our swim right now and cool off before we start getting too steamy here," walking out further into the clear water while Ann joined him, catfish, barbells, killifish, tilapia and turtles all elegantly making way for the playwright and vaudeville performer as the two lovers slid into the translucent little lake.

The water was absolutely great. It felt purifying, soothing, civilizing, invigorating. It washed off the unholy, sticky clotted mixture of dirt and smeared mud and insect hemolymph and sweat and insect guts and sand and blood that had been caking Jack from scalp to soles. It was a spiritual, psychological and physical cleansing, a washing his hands of Skull Island as Jack enthusiastically used those appendages as simple scrapers, rubbing the pollution off in the same circular motions that a beachgoer uses to apply sunscreen. The only thing that would've made it better was if he'd had a bar of Ivory soap with him, but this would just have to do. The feeling of floating in aquatic space, a cool, supporting and insulating three-dimensional realm was a magical, heady one, and it swiftly went like a heavenly drug to both their heads.

Very soon, although he didn't have any idea why, Jack found himself laughing ecstatically in tandem with Ann, and throwing all his normal dignity to the wolves, played with his angel in the cool weightlessness. They took deep breaths and dove together in tandem like a pair of otters. They grabbed each other's forearms and dove linked that way, corkscrewing downward or sideways. They backstroked, Jack looking into Ann's cornflower blue eyes as they laughed together. They gamboled and slipped their bodies over and under each other like sea lions.

Things came to a delightful climax when they parted to catch their breaths, Ann standing on the bottom, Jack admiring her joyous expression up close-when suddenly she gave an impish grin, flicked her wrist, and splashed him in his lean face! Once he blinked away the white pebbles of water, Jack saw a laughing Ann slogging for shore.

"You're going to pay for that!" he announced playfully, going after her. Ann might've been a fast runner and agile, but Jack had the longer legs, and ran her down at the edge of the reeds. Grabbing her around the waist, he slung her onto his shoulder facing backward as she screamed in excitement. Deliberately heading back into the deeper water, he huskily told his giggling captive, "Miss Darrow, don't you know that the person who splashes Jack Driscoll in the face will be sentenced to a dunking as punishment?"

"No," Ann giggled from behind his back.

"Then it's time to teach you!" he proclaimed, grabbing Ann and throwing her on her side into the drink.

Laughing, she bobbed up, launching herself off the bottom to strike Jack in the chest with the heels of both her hands, knocking him backwards and underwater. Getting back up and clearing his vision, Jack gave a crooked, sly grin back before inhaling and diving, circling around Ann, obligingly "playing dumb," and rocketing up behind her to seize her slim body around the ribcage as he gave his best imitation of an alligator bellow. Falling to her knees with a shriek and going below the surface, Ann rose back up with him as they stood to breathe again, laughing as she scooped more water in both hands and let fly.

Jack reciprocated, grinning as they splashed each other back and forth half a dozen times; laughing so hard it almost hurt before tackling Ann again.

Suddenly, Jack remembered why they were in the spring in the first place, as much as it dampened his giddy spirits at the idea of turning his back on so much fun, "Ann, as much as I hate to say it, I think it's time for us to call it quits now," he reluctantly announced, even as he was still smiling and flushed with pure pleasure.

"Do we have to?" Ann girlishly shot back before conceding with "You're right Jack. That water won't stay hot forever," water pouring from her soaked satin slip as she exited their wild swimming pool. Modestly focusing his gaze only on her eyes, then the ground, Jack got an idea for something he wanted to do for her before getting out himself. It would also keep his eyes from being distracted as well.

In the shallows nearby, where a creek from one of the smaller ponds drained into the waterhole, was a compliment of stunning Egyptian blue lotuses, each seemingly carved of ivory and tinted as blue as Ann's eyes.

Seeing that he was beginning to go in a different direction, Ann curiously enquired from behind him, "What are you doing?"

"Getting you a present," Jack looked over his shoulder to respond. Wading out, he reached out over the green plates of leaves with a lithe arm and graciously picked one superb blossom for her, petals spread out in their full sapphire glory.

Returning, Jack presented it to her, bashfully but warmly saying "Here. It matches your eyes so perfectly and smells as sweet as you do that I think this lotus is perfect for you."

Touched, Ann accepted it, saying, "Oh, thank you so much Jack! That is so sweet of you. You're right what a beautiful thing-and it certainly smells divine," she appreciatively added, inhaling deeply of its sweet perfume. "But how will I carry it around," she pondered aloud. "I want to keep this gift of yours for quite a while."

"I never thought of that," Jack shrugged with a sigh of mild annoyance at himself. Hit then by a pleasing concept, he supplied, "You could always look even lovelier than you already are and tie it in your hair," smiling back.

Ann did just that without a word after squeezing the water out of her curls, the lotus looking like an ivory star plucked from heaven and sent to float up against the left side of her head, wonderfully accenting her already surpassing beauty, as far as Jack was concerned. "You are lovely," he murmured.

Turning then to the calabash of steaming water, Jack softly sat down, telling Ann, "Lie down and let me attend to those feet," a small stab of sadness piercing him as he gazed at the abuse they'd taken while he picked up the slab of hide.

" I think if anyone is in the greatest need of attention Jack, it's you, but alright," Ann said with both concern and resignation, stretching her slim legs in front of her and pulling her slip up to a modest height.

Putting the calabash in front of her, Jack told Ann, "Give them a soaking first, then I'll scrub them out." From what he could tell from Ann's gasp of reaction, the water was quite hot, but just tolerable. After a few minutes, she let him tenderly massage and scrub her feet with the wetted hide, rubbing and scraping away the scabs and dirt out of the cuts, even as she grasped the dirt with her hands and compressed her lips against a pain that Jack felt profoundly horrible at inflicting, even if it was for her own good.

The worst part was applying the salve, Ann gasping out "For the love of God Jack, that _does _hurt!"

"I know sweetheart, I know," Jack droned in sympathy, the knowledge that he was causing Ann pain, a woman who if he had the power, would protect from all and every kind of distress forever, like a spear being rammed into his very soul.

Casting about for something to take her focus off the stinging, Jack told Ann, "Have I ever told you about my father Jason?

"Not very much," Ann said through tensed jaws.

"Well, he and my mother currently live in Philadelphia, where he still runs a practice there."

"A practice? You mean your father's a doctor Jack? No, you never told me that."

"Absolutely," he said with a thin smile of pride. "Been known as Jason Driscoll M.D. for thirty-four years running. He served as an army medic in The Great War in fact, and helped save a good deal of wounded soldier's lives."

"So this explains why you're showing an unusual degree of knowhow with treating me then."

"Well, I'm unfortunately not exactly as medically competent as you perceive me to be. Even when I was a boy, I was already much more interested in literature and acting than medicine. Besides, what Father did was something that happened 'at work' and in a whole other sphere, you know?"

"I can see that. But you told me that after the stampede, at the swamp, Lumpy was treating those who were hurt as best he could, and we both know he was the ship's medic. Why didn't you volunteer?"

Sheepishly swaying back and forth for a few seconds, Jack told her, "I was kind of far more preoccupied at the time with getting to and rescuing my angelic dame instead. Plus, he had much more experience, and we both know how Lumpy doesn't-didn't-" he corrected, giving an involuntary little cringe "like people butting in on his domain."

"I remember asking him once if I could take over and cook a meal for the crew myself. It didn't blow over very well," Ann recollected with a nostalgic laugh.

"It's funny," Jack continued thoughtfully, "since Douglas, my middle brother, followed in Father's footsteps and has a practice of his very own now back home. I tease him sometimes about how he's going and making heaps of money just by shining lights in people's mouths and signing slips of paper while his eldest brother is trying to change society yet is living on a comparative shoestring," he grinned widely as he worked more salve into the shallow cuts the teeth of one of the bat-wolves had left dangerously near Ann's eye. He wondered what kind of virulent bacteria the repugnant creatures had in their mouths, and decided that was best left unknown.

"Finished," he proclaimed. "Now it's time for me to suffer agonizing pain for my health," he wryly drawled, putting his feet into the calabash. Oh yes, it was good and hot. At least it was sterilizing things though.

After ten minutes of gritted teeth and shifting feet, Ann now took up the piece of warthog hide herself, repeatedly dipping the pebbled side in the hot water and taking it to Jack's wounds with a focused, no-nonsense intensity that surpassed even his own, and frankly surprised him in a pleased way. She knew what it took to be self-sufficient, and exactly what the best strategy for doing it was with what one had.

_Together, _Jack thought optimistically, _if we can keep this teamwork up and get a little help from the animals, we just might have a sporting chance of getting out alive._

The salve was the worst saved for last, and considering the sheer number of stinging wounds on him that had to be treated, Jack almost wished that he could've been brutally knocked senseless a third time for the process instead. But he didn't have that option, and could only clutch reeds and damn the acidic pain while Ann tried to distract the writer by good-natured teasing and soothing words. It sure was a mercy that a painkiller came included at least.

Finally, to his great relief, Jack heard Ann say the blessed words, "All right Jack. I'm done and you don't have to make such an unholy fuss anymore," as he lay prone.

"Thank Christ," he sighed in pure gratitude before sitting up, wrapping his arms around Ann's warm, slender neck before dealing out another passionate kiss, a way of saying that there were no hard feelings.

Parting from her, Jack reached to retrieve his shed clothing-even this late in the day, it was amazing how fast his boxers had dried in the African heat-, slipping them on again while trying to keep the fabric from touching the wounds as best he could.

"Your clothes are still holding up nicely," Ann coolly commented as Jack's belt again slithered through the loops of his trousers. "I wonder how long this'll last until it falls apart and I'm left as naked as a newborn babe or one of the animals out here," a tone of worry and envy in her voice, gesturing to her tattered slip even as she gratefully slid her pale feet into the feather-lined reed shoes.

"If that happens," Jack kindly responded, "I'm sure we can make something halfway decent out of my shirt, or even turn my trousers into shorts for fabric. And if need be," he warily, softly whispered in her ear, making sure no bird or beast was listening in, "I could and would make something out of those aforementioned animal's hides to clothe you with."

"We should probably talk about that much later Jack," Ann murmured back in her floating voice. "Kiboko and his pals are probably just beside themselves with curiosity to learn more about us, and I don't think overhearing us talking about clothing ourselves with their skins would make a good first impression."

A twist of self-conscious shame sliding through his gut, Jack dryly agreed, "Silence would definitely be golden in that instance. And speaking of silence, looks like we'll need to be getting to our strange game of Twenty Questions with them now before we can have any hope of a good sleep tonight."

Abruptly, Ann's eyes then took on a look of dawning, awed amazement, and she drew her seated body out of its casual slouch, saying in hushed wonder as she gazed past him, "Jack, I think quite a few more came to play while we were attending to our hygiene."

Slowly, not sure what to expect, Jack rose into a squat, and turned. The number of animals that had first come to gawk in amazement at them had been quite noteworthy, but now he found himself looking back at a whole zoo's worth. It took his breath away, and he could only stammer, "I guess everyone can come over now." _Looks like the word sure got around, to say the very least._

The bigger animals were the most immediately attention-grabbing, coming forward as Ann uneasily moved in a sideways crouch against his side, Jack reassuringly stroking the gentle curve of the small of her back as he raised his eyes up to those of the tallest ones, taking everything in. This time, he felt an utterly bizarre, confusingly unfamiliar sensation, one where things were turned on their heads and _they_ were both the caged animals now, for visitors to point and stare at in wowed amazement.

_Come see the extraordinary spectacle of a mated pair of Homo sapiens, taken alive in the fierce concrete jungles of New York City!_, a part of him crazily thought at the unbelievable irony as the playwright suppressed his desire to break into hysterical laughter.

There was a whole heard of huge elephants on their ashy pillars of legs, twenty-three in all ranging from small, big-eyed calves to the reserved, contemplative matriarch, her left tusk broken off halfway down. As if they were strange, yet ultimately quite elegant stretched-out mixtures of horse, camel, and cow, three or four dozen Maasai giraffes, three times as tall as Jack and bearing the same haughty, yet softly knowing gaze that could so often be seen in his own eyes, came forward as well, cragged broken dead leaves of chestnut reticulating their taut creamy hide.

Dozens of curious, yet surly-looking Cape buffalo, fringed ears twitching under their Viking-helmet horns, seeming to carry a grim "You'd best keep on moving if you know what's good for you" scowling demeanor about their black bovine bodies, plodded forward, trying to seem as meek as they could for the human strangers. Their clumsy attempts, and the threat of brutish violence that seemed to hang about them was echoed in the ironically somewhat more placid-looking rhinos, monolithic beasts seemingly carved out of huge rocks and made flesh, nearsighted eyes squinting painfully at these strange pink apes from heads the size of wine kegs and armed with double horns like giant awls, the larger white rhinos distinguished by their flat square mouths for grazing, the smaller black ones by hooked prehensile ones for browsing.

There were even more of those sturdy fat striped ponies, the zebras, sharp black and white slashes blending together in crazy patterns that made Jack's eyes sting if he gazed at them for too long. And everywhere, everywhere, were tribes, bands, and herds of graceful, svelte, sleek antelope. They ranged from tiny, hare-sized dik-diks with their long legs and Roman noses, to huge elands, dove-gray creatures six feet tall at the shoulder, humped and dewlapped like a Maasai ox and as big as a prize steer.

Some were plain, like the bobcat-sized gray duikers with their salt and pepper coats, grotesquely huge butts and forward sloping backs, and some were truly, exotically handsome, like the kudus, adorned with great corkscrew horns and wearing chocolate brown pinstripe suits, almost like a similar one Jack had in his apartment's closet.

But perhaps the most beautiful and majestic of all the antelope were by far the sable antelope, imperially commanding creatures with great scimitar horns and powerful equine muscles, bulls bearing stunning jet-black livery, cows in rich chestnut, dramatically accented in both sexes by stark, thick milk-white facial blazes.

All around them too, were flocks and flocks of birds, ranging from the imposingly tall, austere looking ostriches, to the much smaller blue-eared starlings, birds resplendently plumaged in sleek metallic teal.

Rising to his feet in an attempt to look somewhat more dignified, feeling so much like a specimen on display, Jack masked his nervousness by giving a slow grin and quipping, "First of all, yes, Ann and I are animal," before his vocal cords became stone. In her turn, Ann also gave a nervous little staccato laugh. He knew that as a lady who'd known stages and varied audiences all her life, she obviously was used to feeling the eyes of a crowd on her.

For his part, Jack Driscoll was himself well acquainted with the sensation of being the literal center attention, men in tuxedos and pinstripe suits, women in sparkling dresses and fur coats surrounding the playwright in a football huddle to shake his hand, congratulate him on the moving sagacity of his latest work, ask for his autograph to elevate a printed copy, and sometimes even take his picture with a flashbulb that made little spots briefly dance in his vision. Somehow, he'd learned to live with and even enjoy it.

Those observers and fans however, had all been fellow humans. To be the object, the being that hundreds of nonhuman pupils were directed at, each pair animated by and sparkling with an alien intelligence, was profoundly eerie, even creepy. Jack was deeply aware of Ann's left hand and arm pressing in a mixture of expectation and hesitation against the blade of his left shoulder, waiting for him uncertainly to break the ice in the air.

Breathing deeply to fortify his limp nerves, Jack thought, _Remember buddy, they're just curious, that's all. They don't want to hurt Ann or you, only find out more about you. You gave them leave to ask and answer questions, so don't just stand here and quake for the love of Pete._

"Well, have at it with the questions and comments," Jack weakly smiled at the talking intelligent animals, a happy medium finally reached between confidence and stupefying meekness.

The first one was pretty much expected. "What in the name of the great kings are you?" an impala doe inquired in awe.

What are you? It was a question full of incomprehension, wonderment, confusion, and disbelief all at once. It was a simple, yet mind-bogglingly deep question, one that to the best of Jack's reeling knowledge had only been asked of two people in history, Buddha and Lord Jesus Christ.

"Um, we're human beings," he replied with a shoulder shrug, self-consciously staring at the ground briefly. That seemed to touch off even more amazed consternation among the animals, whispering, gesturing at, and nodding about them before a bat-eared fox-_now she's sure all ears_, Jack thought with private amusement-seeking conformation, asked in tentative skepticism, "Are you two really humans? You're not some kind of mutated monkey?"

This time, Jack couldn't stand it any longer, and his deep purring laughter joined in a round with the tinkling one of Ann's before he settled down and told the fox through a wide crooked grin, "We're related to monkeys, but definitely not a type of them. No, Ann and I are the Real McCoy."

A dignified looking secretary bird, gray with hindquarters and pantaloons of black feathers, a starburst of long, thin plumes sticking crazily out like quill pens from the back of her head, cut in to volunteer apologetically, "Forgive us if any of our remarks or questions ever seem stupid or absurdly ignorant. For most of us here in the Pridelands you see, your kind has existed only in the tales we tell."

The irony was sharply, serendipitously pleasing, and as Ann laughed in delight, Jack, grinning hugely in glee, responded "So you tell tales about us? You'd never believe it, but we have and greatly enjoy telling 'animal tales' among ourselves as well. Hopefully they're mostly flattering ones," he finished with a smile, although he wasn't optimistic.

"Mostly they are, you'll be happy to know," assured the half-tusked elephant matriarch. "We learn things like compassion for the weak and how to use one's wits from human tales."

Although he suspected the huge pachyderm might be lying to him and Ann to protect their feelings, Jack still felt relieved all the same. Now Ann was intending to speak herself, but was inadvertently cut off when a slow-on-the-uptake Gambian pouched rat commented disdainfully, "Tails? Come on, humans don't have tails. They have big, big fleshy bottoms that they wear weird loose hide over, just like you," he cheekily told the elephant leader. Suddenly, the rodent's whiskered face took on a look of pure apologetic horror as he realized that he'd just needled the largest animal on land.

But instead of crushing him, the half-tusked cow just laughed good-naturedly back at him, while Jack and Ann laughed in embarrassed shock.

Deciding to break the atmosphere of mortification and return to the basics, one curious impala stag asked, "I see that you Ann, have blond hair, while-what's your name?"

"Jack Driscoll for the record," the playwright provided.

"Thanks," the graceful antelope said with a head bob. "Anyway, I see that you have thick black hair. Is that uh, a gender thing, just like how I have horns while my ladies," and here he gestured with smug pride towards his does, "don't?"

With a thin smile and breezy puff of air through her nose, Ann shook her head before Jack could respond, saying "No actually. In fact, our hair can come in all kinds of different colors, and it doesn't matter whether you're a fella or a broad like me," she smirked at herself.

An ostrich hen in turn then opened her beak, obviously about to satisfy her curiosity even further, but then unexpectedly swiveled her naked pink head to the left, staring with a thoughtful intensity at something coming down a path towards the weird assembly. "Guys, don't look now, but the royal kids are coming to pay us a visit."

_Royal kids? Huh?_ Jack thought in confusion, looking for answers in Ann's blue eyes as a giraffe bull then turned in the same direction, saying "Yeah, you're right. Looks like the feathered servant is taking them out for a walk."

"That must be the lion cubs," Ann murmured warily to Jack before he followed the direction of the whole menagerie's collective gaze.

Coming closer, flying in a slow, low glide over the grass was a blue-white hornbill with a flamboyant red beak, apparently far too focused on other matters below him to notice the playwright and the angelic woman beside him. Those other matters were a pair of young lion cubs, one of them butterscotch in color and male, the other a pure light tan and female. Both were talking softly, whispering to each other.

_Aren't they so utterly adorable,_ was Jack's first thought, giving a warm, charmed smile as warm enchantment flooded his soul. Hard on its heels though, came a chilling, far more serious and gut-clenching one. _Oh God, where the hell is the mother?_

Immediately, he wrapped an arm hard around Ann's shoulders, wildly looking around for any sign of a tawny feline form. If the lioness caught him and Ann near her cubs, she wouldn't show them any more mercy or understanding then the giant ape had shown towards Jack on the log and in his mountaintop lair, only this time _both_ he and Ann would be the target of her anger.

Taking Ann's shoulders in his hands, Jack spat out sharply, "Ann, we are going to go into the tallest reeds we can right now. I'll have the bone club, and will look in front of us and to the left. You look behind us and to the right. And if you see a lion before we get there, for the love of Christ, you scream to let me know it."

"Actually, you two don't have to worry," a Cape buffalo bull groaned out.

"Maybe you don't with your hide and horns, but we sure do!" Ann said in desperate fear as Jack tugged at her to hurry along.

"No, I mean it. Whenever Simba and Nala are out with Zazu, that _always_ means their parents are relaxing at Pride Rock, and you're safe," the buffalo earnestly said.

Somehow, the terrible fear for both Ann and himself that Jack was under the spell of dissipated away, leaving a perplexed curiosity. " Who is Zazu? That bird there?"

"Yes, he's an annoying bird who spies on everyone's business and reports back to the king, even if he does think it's for our own good," a sable antelope cow lightheartedly, half-jokingly quipped.

The aforementioned bird was now on the ground, talking to both cubs. Consumed with curiosity, Jack frowned pensively, then cautiously began moving forward with slow, stiff-legged strides, ears straining as he cocked his head.

For some unaccountable reason, both Simba and Nala-he was a quick study and figured that the names the buffalo had said clearly were their titles-, suddenly took on expressions of disgusted abhorrence, the speaking Zazu having suggested something that was evidently anathema to them.

The wind shifted then, and Jack heard Zazu saying in an aristocratic British accent, "…but you two turtledoves have no choice. It's a tradition…" as an exasperated Simba rolled his eyes and imitated the hornbill's pompous words.

Oblivious to the mocking, Zazu went on, "going back generations."

Holding a hand over her sputtering lips, Ann chuckled softly, "Jack, he's talking about the birds and the bees to them! Don't I remember how disgusted I was at the idea of romance too!"

Simba was now saying with confident pride, "Well when I'm king, that'll be the first thing to go."

Not missing a beat with his young charge, Zazu warned, "Not so long as I'm around."

"Well, in that case, you're fired," Simba decisively proclaimed. Already, Jack found himself loving the cub's pure gumption.

And then, to his and Ann's utter shocked surprise, they heard a playful, exotic, tribal type of music begin to swell up out of nowhere.

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**Well, I'm sure we all know what's going to happen in the immediate future. I also want to take the time here to respectfully dedicate this chapter and indeed all of my stories, to my absolute hero and inspiration, The Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, who was tragically taken from us last Monday. No matter what the reader may think of them, I earnestly, deeply hope that my undying fascination with and love for animals and the natural world can be seen in my fics. But if my passion lights up the text, it is only a candle compared to the stadium light's worth Steve exuded, and shared unabashedly with the whole world. I want to say more, I feel so inadequate, but the agony is still far too fresh and still runs too deep. Rest in peace Steve-o, I and a whole lot of others will do our best to keep the conservation torches burning. And although I never got the chance to meet him, there is one point we'd both wholeheartedly agree on, a sentiment that I want my audience to absorb even if they don't know it at first. As the title and refrain of the opening song in Fern Gully proclaims: Life Is A Magic Thing.**

**We love you Steve Irwin.**


	10. The Prince and the Dancers

**Wow! I think this is the shortest time it's ever taken me to put up a new chapter. From here on, the next few chapters will more or less stick to the canon events in The Lion King, although Jack and Ann's presence and reactions will of course alter the material to varying degrees. This chapter may seem somewhat frivolous, but if so, just remember that this scene and song are all about our bold-as-brass young Simba and everyone else is just along for the ride! Still, Ann and a bemused Jack do get to play a nice spectator/supporting role here. They'll come back into prominence in the exciting next chapter. As before, happy reading to everyone until then!**

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_Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? _The Lobster Quadrille, from Lewis Carroll's _Alice's Adventures In Wonderland_. 

When the strange music, unlike anything she'd ever heard, came bouncing, swelling from Lord knew where, Ann's first sensation was an enveloping fear, a now deeply conditioned combination of expectation and recollection that made her stomach muscles clench and flooded her guts with heated acid. It seemed eerily, piercingly far too similar to what the loathsome cannibal savages had played on their great log drums at her sacrifice, an ear-ringing, reverberating, chillingly foreign refrain. With terrifying possibilities for her immediate demise thrashing inside her skull, Ann Eunice Darrow had been convinced it would be her death dirge.

"Oh God Jack…" she croaked in a quavering voice of terror. But even as she was saying it, her red spasm of fear cooled and started to dissipate. As she continued to listen to it, Ann swiftly disabused herself indeed of the idea that this growing musical piece heralded any danger. This music, it was an alien thing to her ears, yes, but it was exuberant, it was lighthearted, it was peppy, it jumped like a sparrow and flowed like poured milk.

For his part, Jack was whipping around in pure shocked bafflement, head twitching and green eyes wide as he looked at both the sky and grassland for the source of this music that so nonsensically came from both everywhere and nowhere. He looked like a rat frantically trying to get into the right position to face the hawk it knows is going to attack from above. Clearly misinterpreting what her statement had implied, he ululated, "Oh God is right Ann. What is this? Music doesn't just come the hell out of the blue!"

Already though, Ann was beyond that. There was a part of her that was every bit as truly flabbergasted and agog as Jack was at the fact that tribal-type music was coming out of the sky, you bet your bottom dollar.

Overall however, the dominant sensation that Ann Darrow felt was a familiar quivering of the nerves, an excitement that inflated her blood vessels and sent their crimson cargo rushing hot and hard with the speed of an arrow. It made her body hair stand up on end with a prickly feeling, sent endorphins _cascading_ through her circulatory system like a starved snake in a ground squirrel colony, and filled coiled muscles with so much of the "dynamic tension" that he-man Charlie Atlas always advertised it felt like Ann's skin would rupture if something wasn't done.

At that point, the male cub, Simba, impudently and firmly thumped Zazu's feathered chest, decreeing, "So you have to do what I tell you."

"Not yet I don't," a disgusted Zazu barked. "And with an attitude like that, I'm afraid you're shaping up to be a pretty pathetic king indeed."

Totally undaunted, Simba confidently said from over his shoulder, "Hmph. Not the way I see it."

Then, the crazy music with no apparent source kicked into high gear, almost explosively as Simba crouched and stalked towards Zazu. The suddenness made Ann and Jack both jump backward, but they both recovered from being startled just as fast, entranced by the little shenanigan in front of them as Simba broke into song of all things.

"I'm gonna be a mighty king, so enemies beware!" Simba declared, backing Zazu up and causing the bird to get his rump stuck in the knothole of a fallen log.

Literally not missing a beat, Zazu shot back, "Well I've never seen a king of beasts, with quite so little hair," somehow plucking a hair from the cub's forehead with two primary feathers.

"Great, now we find out that the birds here can actually manipulate things with their wing feathers," Jack muttered in resigned amazement. "Is there anything about this place and these creatures that is _NOT _utterly abnormal for crying out loud?"

Despite a brief wince, Simba didn't even break his stride, Ann being too focused on him to answer Jack as the cub then dispersed a covey of colorful birds and plunged his head through a bunch of dead red leaves, boasting "I'm gonna be the mane event, like no king was before." Leaving the dark red leaves then in one fluid motion, Simba then climbed to the highest point of the log, adopting a haughty posture as he declared, "I'm brushing up on looking down, I'm working on my ROAR," the last word causing Zazu to be startled and fall backward into a mud puddle, making Jack smirk and Ann stifle a giggle with her hand.

"Thus far, a rather uninspiring thing," Zazu dismissively announced as he headed for what seemed like a handy towel only feet away.

But Ann saw what was coming a mile away, gleefully telling her partner, "Look at what he's going to do Jack!"

Seeing that the hornbill was going right for an elephant's ear, Jack said with dry humor and a thin smile, "Batter up!" Naturally, the incensed elephant gave the hornbill a piece of his mind, whacking the bird with his trunk and sending him skipping like a stone over the marsh as Jack amusingly announced, "Fore!" with a broad crooked grin before Ann joined him in going into stitches.

At that instant, the pleasant realization, the reason why the music and song was making her so ecstatic and wonderfully, deliciously tense broke upon Ann's mind like an ocean wave. What was going on was like her _other_ greatest passion in life, besides Jack Driscoll. This was like…like…like…like **vaudeville!** And when the spirit, the atmosphere moved and called you, oh baby, you couldn't say no.

Like the two cubs, she followed afte Zazu eagerly and immediately, an anxious Jack shouting, "For Christ's sake, what are you doing Ann?"

"Participating in the little dance party!" she wildly responded while looking back at him over her left shoulder for the briefest of moments before continuing to run through a pink flock of greater and lesser flamingos, beaming from ear to ear as Simba jubilantly sang, "Oh I just can't _wait_ to be king!"

As she reached a spot in a papyrus stand where Zazu had come to rest, looking rather bedraggled as the two cubs stood on either side of him, alternately making enthusiastic snaps and the exact kind of silly faces that Melissa Marquadt Darrow would never tolerate from her daughters behind the hornbill's back, Ann heard Jack resignedly sloshing up behind her.

"You know Miss Darrow," he panted, "it's going to be pretty difficult to protect you if you're given to running off at random."

"Shhh Jack," an enchanted Ann softly said. "Look what they're doing," she grinned as an increasingly more exasperated Zazu tried to plead his case.

Pointing at Simba, Zazu curtly told him, "You've rather a long way to go, young master, if you think…"

"No one saying do this," Simba ecstatically shot.

"Now when I said that, I-" Zazu tried to elaborate.

But he was cut off by Nala's melodic voice, adding "No one saying be there."

"What I meant was…" Zazu began to clarify.

"Sorry buddy, but they're way past wanting to listen to you," Jack muttered knowingly.

And indeed, Simba took up the baiting, boldly telling the bird, "No one saying stop that."

"Look what you don't realize …" Zazu volunteered in one final attempt to specify.

"No one saying see here!" both cubs jubilantly sang, hitting nice high notes as far as Ann was concerned.

A pair of cock ostriches then ran between the humans and cubs, blocking Ann's view as the cubs each leapt onto a feathered mount, rapidly disappearing as Zazu, his frustration now at the boiling point, shrieked, "Now see here!"

Simba boldly, cheerily fantasized, "Free to run around all day," from his ostrich perch.

"Well, that's definitely out," Zazu snidely muttered in response, returning to the air.

The cubs were receding swiftly, and there was no way Ann could ever keep up with an ostrich, despite her decent speed. She wanted now not to just vicariously participate by observing and laughing, but to literally leap into the surreal festival herself. It seemed though, that all a disappointed Ann would be able to do at this point was chase after the flightless birds in a futile attempt to keep up, then watch with a helpless, dashed longing as they went off to continue the spectacle Christ knew how far away and Simba declared, "Free to do it all my way!"n

But thankfully, someone noticed. The aristocratically loping form of a bull giraffe came into her peripheral vision from the right, and she turned with Jack to face him. "I already know from the waterhole who your names are, Jack and Ann," the giraffe hurriedly explained. "My name's Quigga, and it looks to me like you're equally interested in following Simba and Nala's progress. So um, uh, would you like a ride from me on my back until they stop?"

Filled up with a warm, filling rush of giddiness, Ann shouted automatically, gratefully, "Yes Quigga, we'd love to!"

Emerald eyes wide with shock, Jack whipped around in a quarter-turn to face her, saying in confused amazement, "We do?"

"Come on Jack, we've ridden an elephant together, so how is this really any different?" Ann questioned, as Quigga was already kneeling down like a camel.

Accepting his girl's mad desire, Jack just shook his head in resignation before getting onto Quigga's back, straddling the variegated shoulders as the playwright gently but firmly wrapped his arms around the base of the bull's neck, body at a forty-five degree angle. "If we fall and die because of this Ann, I'm going to kill you," he growled half-jokingly.

Eagerly, Ann followed suit, slinging herself over Jack's body and grabbing him around the armpits, excitedly telling Quigga, "Okay, now you can go."

"Hang on and grab hard," the giraffe coolly told them before lurching to his hooves.

Although she was now bizarrely familiar with the sensation, Ann still felt her heart seem to drop like a broken elevator, taking a great gasp of air and eyes widening as an absolutely startled Jack scrabbled and cried, "Whoa Jesus!" in response.

Quigga then began to run, a rocking, swinging, elegant run as Ann clamped her legs against the short, sleek bristly fur, advising Jack, "Think of it as like riding a horse Jack. Just get used to the rhythm." And indeed, she felt him soon calm underneath her, his breathing and muscles adjusting and responding in kind to the pendulum cycles of the giraffe bull's gigantic legs.

"You know Ann, once you become accustomed to it, this is actually weirdly quite fun," the playwright reflected with pleased gaiety.

Quigga was running parallel to Zazu now, the hornbill frantically trying to catch up to the two cubs. Reaching them, Ann watched with Jack as the bird sternly decreed to Simba, "I think it's time that you and I, arranged a heart to heart."

Unfortunately, not paying attention, Zazu flew smack dab into the rear end of a browsing black rhino, looking rather plastered on it as both humans and the giraffe all laughed explosively and Simba smugly proclaimed, "Kings don't need advice, from little hornbills for a start."

Detaching himself from the black rhino's hide, a now thoroughly fed up Zazu landed on a branch, dismissively crossing and flicking his wings apart as Jack said from underneath Ann, "Not a very wise place for Zazu to land and vent."

Almost spitting his words out with umbrage, an oblivious Zazu shouted, "If this is where the monarchy is headed, count me out! Out of service, out of Africa, I wouldn't hang about…aagh!" he squawked in surprise as his log went over the small waterfall Ann had passed by with Jack so recently, causing them again to sputter and chuckle in pure amusement.

Too focused and angry to pay heed, Zazu quickly popped up again in flight, heading for the cubs with a grim determination, expressing it with a disgusted, "This child is getting wildly out of wing."

Swiveling around, Quigga allowed her to see the cubs, now off their ostriches and skipping towards a herd of zebras, Simba leaping up with another exuberant "Oh I just can't _wait_ to be king!"

"How in Christ's name do they know how to do this so perfectly?" a simultaneously baffled and awed Jack asked. "Was there some kind of dress rehearsal that we were completely unaware of beforehand?"

"Okay, I think they'll stay here from now on," the dignified bull told them. "I'll let you down now," he continued, slowly kneeling down again, folding his taut dappled legs underneath his body.

Ann animatedly rose first, sliding off the torso and feeling her reed-cloaked feet make a gentle impact with the ground before turning to help a distinctly relieved looking Jack off as well. "Thanks for the ride Quigga!" she graciously told him before turning and heading right on the cub's heels.

"Ann, stay back a bit!" a fearful Jack shouted from right behind her. "Don't you understand that you're becoming way too friendly with _lions_, for Christ's sake?"

Smiling, a jogging Ann looked back at him and proclaimed, "They're just harmless cubs Jack! Beside, don't you just want to join in the fun too?" she coaxed.

"Well, alright," the playwright acquiesced. "But only this once, and don't go telling their parents or people we know about it," he jokingly warned with a thin smile of hesitant enthusiasm. "And besides, I've decided that I don't really like this Zazu fella either. Reminds me far too much of my Uncle Benjamin, for whom fun was like a curse word," he added with one of those wonderful crooked grins as he fell into step beside her.

At this point, Simba and Nala were spryly trotting up an avenue of Grant's zebras, all standing at attention like palace guards a few dozen yards before them. When Zazu walked down, the striped ponies all turned and raised their tails like poles. Clearly thinking he was going to be soiled, Zazu hilariously frantically covered himself with and cowered under a wing.

Quickly realizing that this wasn't going to happen though, Zazu took flight, leaving the zebra corridor open for an enchanted Ann and Jack. On his own volition, Jack slipped his long, pleasingly muscular right arm under Ann's left shoulder, both crooks linking as the zebras reversed their positions, backed up, and thrillingly bowed as Ann jogged together with Jack through this crazy promenade, both of them gazing at each other as they laughed softly together.

Shifting her cornflower stare on Zazu, Ann saw him looking for the cubs as he flew over a herd of elephants, pounding the ground with their columnar legs and swinging their trunks in expressions of the same excitement she was feeling.

Popping out from the herd's leading edge, Simba then leapt up a giraffe and climbed to the top of its head. Standing there as Zazu flew under him, he decreed, "Everybody look left."

At that moment, a side-splitting thing began to happen, a small herd of animals rushing sideways to the left towards Zazu. Mischievously, unhesitatingly, Ann joined the fray, doing her familiar hold-an-imaginary-cane-and-dance-sideways-routine in the company of a wildebeest, a Cape buffalo, an elephant, a giraffe, a leopardess, and a hippo, among other animals as a worried Jack stayed only a few steps away. Zazu made a highly amusing squawk that trumpeted his surprise while the herd trampled him, also giving the red-billed hornbill an unscheduled dust bath.

Then Simba sang, "Everybody look right," Ann Darrow instantly using her dazzling, practiced agility to swerve in a flash and go in the opposite direction with all the animals, running roughshod over Zazu again. The herd broke up then, giving her a perfect view of Simba effortlessly leaping up a ladder of accommodating giraffe's heads, stating "Everywhere you look I'm…"sliding down one's neck to adopt a perfect theatrical pose before finishing, "Standing in the spotlight!"

_Excellently done Simba!_ Ann thought in the pure admiration that one professional stage performer always feels towards a wholehearted, flawless demonstration by another. _I bet Jack is absolutely floored by this too-oh God, where is Jack?_, she thought wildly, seeing that her beloved partner wasn't anywhere near her. Panic began to blossom in Ann's breast as Zazu spat in impressive time, "Not yet!" before the hindquarters of a zebra and giraffe closed on him like huge doors.

Ann was in absolutely no mood for amusement now though. Had Jack tripped or fallen and been trampled to death by the herd while she was obliviously doing her giddy soft-shoeing along with them? Wildly, she cast about. To her deep relief, she saw Jack quite close by, only separated from Simba by a hippo and unhurt.

As she watched, beginning to move towards the playwright, Simba conspiratorially whispered something in the hippo's ear. The hippo then beckoned a curious Jack to lean to the left, the beast then revealing his great ivory tusks as he whispered what Simba had told him into _Jack's_ ear. Although Ann had no clue what had just passed in words between them, Jack suddenly stood up, amusement tightening his tanned Roman features as he slowly gave a devilish grin, then passed the message on to a receiving giraffe, who then passed it on to a blue monkey.

Filled with curiosity, Ann began to trot towards Jack when a lovely lilac-breasted roller flew like a flash in front of her. With a cinnamon back, dark purple shoulders, a lilac throat and chest streaked with white, a turquoise belly, tail, rump, and wing patch, and a crown and nape of spearmint green, the bird was a small riot of colors. Hovering in front of her, this living artwork animatedly requested of Ann, "Spread out your arms and fingers!"

Totally confused by such an order, she felt her forehead wrinkle in puzzlement as the pastel-colored roller repeated, more urgently, "Look, you'll love it. Please spread out your arms and fingers!"

Even though she still couldn't even guess what the bird's intention was, there was something so earnest and sincere and expectant and delighted in his voice that Ann mentally thought, "_Well okay. What the hell,"_ and stretched her arms to their full length, fanning out her fingers at the same time.

Instantly, a whole aviary of colorful birds was literally on her. There were other lilac-breasted rollers, malachite kingfishers, and blue-eared starlings.

Little green bee-eaters came flocking, with Kelly green bodies, thin black dominos, a black necklace, and thin tail streamers. Little bee-eaters with similarly green upperparts joined them in buff-colored underparts, sky-blue "eyebrows" above their black masks, and bright yellow throats above a black necklace, then a rufous one. There was a group of swallow-tailed bee-eaters, pale green with rumps and forked tails colored like polished turquoise and yellow throats above thin blue necklaces. Perhaps the most gorgeous were the northern carmine bee-eaters, streamlined rosy carmine birds with green-blue crowns and throats, bearing pale blue vents and rumps.

That still wasn't all. Glossy purple violet wood-hoopoes with bright red legs and crimson sickles for bills. Bright metallic, swirled green emerald cuckoos with lemon yellow lower breasts and bellies. D'Arnaud's barbets, stocky little birds with pale yellow underparts, white-spotted black upperparts, and black-flecked heads that seemed dipped in gold dust. Sunbirds came like flying jewels with thin scmitar beaks for imbibing nectar, each one a rainbow of iridescent color-collared, scarlet-chested, variable, mariqua, beautiful. Superb and golden-breasted starlings, exotically far more lovely than any European one came with a whole painter's palette of weaverbirds-lesser masked, blue-cheeked cordon bleus, purple grenadiers, southern red bishops.

To Ann's shocked delight, this profusion of flamboyant feathers gently came to rest on her fingers, arms, shoulders, and blond crown. Some even clutched the upper edges and straps of her slip with their feet. Those winged beauties that couldn't find a place simply settled on the ground at her reed-shod ones. It reminded her so enchantingly, thrillingly, of how as part of his "Jungle Man" vaudeville act, one of Ann's former friends, Ernie Maple, would give a whistle, and a whole flock of gorgeous parrots, budgies, and doves would come flying from all directions to land on his body.

"All right," the first lilac-breasted roller gabbled breathlessly. "When you hear the word 'wing', throw your arms up into the air, OK?"

Ann just nodded.

The chorus of wild animals was becoming more enthusiastically animated with the song now, going "Let every creature go for broke and sing, let's hear it in the herd and on the wing!"

_NOW_! Ann thought, gracefully flinging her supple arms into the air-and in a spectacular, prize-worthy display of color and motion, the rainbow of birds on her and at her feet exploded into the African sky, singing as they did so! As Ann felt her face spilt open in an absolutely enchanted, ivory-toothed grin, Jack was at her right, crying in amazed pride, "Good Lord Ann, that display was just stunning!"

But before Ann could thank Jack for his words of praise, something even _more_ stunning than that caught their attention as the song came to its climax.

As the chorus yelled, "It's gonna be King Simba's finest fling!" some animal giving an excited, high-pitched, "OH YYEEEEAAAAHHHHHH!" in response, the final verse began. To the stage actresses' and the playwright's dumbfounded amazement, out of a ring of elephants doing "Egyptian-style" moves with their trunks, came a ring of hippos, which then stood like boulders on the backs of the larger animals. More came, blossoming out of the center like the blue lotus bloom in Ann's hair to form their own distinct layers.

Giraffes, long variegated gaslight-pole necks parting and falling away from each other like asparagus stalks when the rubber band is taken off. Giant anteaters, flicking their sticky tongues like reddish ribbons-_I thought they lived in South America, _Ann thought incredulously. Sable antelope bulls, their huge horns parting like scimitars in an Arab men's dance to reveal, so high Ann now had to crane her thin neck and bring her gaping mouth level with the ground, a cock ostrich, spreading his white wings like fans to reveal Simba and Nala, a pink halo of flamingos flying above.

Astounded beyond belief at this spectacle, all a dumfounded Ann could say was, "If I brought something like this to Chicago and laid it at Manny's feet, he'd probably make me his adoptive daughter on the spot. Then he'd likely have a heart attack from all the excitement," she pragmatically added.

"Everyone would be _bowing down_ at my feet if I showed Mr. Weston and my other theater pals this sort of spectacle on Broadway. Jesus, unbelievable," Jack gasped distractedly in pure wonder.

All the while, every single animal continued to just belt out, "Oh I just can't wait to be king!"

Then the inevitable happened, the tower of animals beginning to sway drunkenly and unpredictably against the setting sun under their combined weight as Ann backpedaled and Jack's hand closed around her right wrist, turning her as he dryly, cheerily said, "Looks like the two-person audience is suddenly too close!" Maybe it was a trick of the light, but for a second Ann thought she saw on the other side, from the corner of her eye, a warthog streak in to pluck a weasel-like creature from the same predicament.

As she picked up her pace, Ann saw from a long shadow that the animal tower was falling, breaking up behind them, still too close. Suddenly, a sable antelope bull came flying down and hit the ground on his knees, landing precisely nine centimeters from Jack's toes with a _whump._ As dust puffed up, Ann and her lover both exclaimed "Whoa!" as they both vaulted backwards like a pair of vervet monkeys.

Getting back to his feet, the massive sable bull shook himself, contritely told them, "Sorry about that humans," and then cantered off, horns seeming to catch on the salmon and peach washed sky like it was fabric.

As more animals passed them on the ground, she felt Jack's broad hand stroke her shoulder blade, enquiring softly, "Ann, are you alright?"

Calmed by his touch, she nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just caused me to jump a bit, that's all," laughing at how her body had literally done just that."

"You weren't the only one," Jack pointed out as he gave a knowing grin, emerald eyes twinkling. "And if only we'd had a picture when all those birds flushed off you! If I didn't know any better, I'd have believed my sweetheart to be Papagino's new wife from _The Magic Flute_ with all those rainbows of feathers around you," bending down to proudly kiss her on the cheek, then in the ticklish hollow between her neck and shoulder as Ann's satisfied heart filled with the warmth that permeated her blood from the touch of his smooth lips.

As she blushed and giggled at once, Ann hopefully thought, _New wife…Somehow, as crazy as it seems, I wouldn't and for this moment in time, don't mind that idea._

Cruelly, a grim part of her sprung up to say, growling like a lion, _Remember what happens when you think too intimately and prop your hopes up too high Ann, especially since you're wandering out HERE._

Reluctantly, she silently pushed her warmly optimistic thoughts away, and then swept the new, uneasy ones out too by questioning thoughtfully, "I wonder what happened to Zazu and the cubs though Jack?" as she scanned the space of grass around them.

"Beats m-" Jack began to say, dismissively shrugging, -but Ann then received an answer as to the hornbill's current whereabouts.

A black rhino cow was sitting dumbly about a hundred and fifty yards away, Zazu's pompous voice coming from under her rump in a muffled, "I beg your pardon, madam, but…GET OFF! Simba? Nala?" he hopefully questioned.

The comical scene and speech utterly slaid Ann, slapping her hands against her thighs as Jack joined her with his purring chuckles and Zazu said, "Nala? Simba? So help me, you'd best not be standing there laughing at me if you know what's good for you!"

His wide crooked grin draining away, Jack took pity on the hornbill, saying, "I think he's taken more than his fair share of abuse this afternoon, don't you?" Without waiting for Ann to give the obvious response, he strode towards the rhino on his long legs, telling Ann offhandedly, "Stay back for your safety. I'm just going to circle around in front of her and make her aware of the problem, although I think everything will be fine."

Since she didn't sense any aggression about the rhino, and remembered her from the waterhole anyway, Ann just acceptingly nodded. As Jack slowly, yet confidently circled around to the black rhino's front, getting her attention with a "Hey there!" and neutrally informing her that she was sitting on someone, Ann's attention was diverted then by the tracks of both cubs, showing that they'd been scampering due south.

_Oh Christ have mercy_, she thought in horror, gasping as an exotic, yet deeply instinctive wave of maternal concern crashed through her. They had to be heading for the place she and Jack had first been sent to.

To her left, the rhino was saying to Jack as she got to her ace-of-clubs feet, "Thanks for telling me buddy. Terribly sorry," she apologized to Zazu, turning.

"Yes, well, it's not your fault madam," the bird hurriedly replied, brushing himself off and shaking his feathers back into place. "Those dratted cubs were-Oh no, where are the cubs!"

"They went that way!" Ann shouted frantically, pointing south towards the ashy area.

A panic and fear for them equal to Ann's own striking Zazu's features as the rhino plodded off, he shouted, "In the name of King Mufasa, no! Not the Elephant Graveyard!" Immediately, he leapt up into the air, took flight, and tore south like the hounds of hell were after his charges. And they would be soon, a concerned Ann knew. Zazu wouldn't be enough, and she had to do _something_!

As he rejoined her, Ann was only distantly aware of Jack sardonically muttering, "You're welcome."

_The muscle I need!_

Her heart going like a mad thing, soaked in altruistic fear for the cubs, she turned like a flash and told Jack, "Jack, I think you might have to perform one more act of bravery before the day is out. This time though, we'll be doing it together."

Completely at a loss, Jack's forehead narrowed and he said, "Bravery? For cripes sake Ann, what are you even talking about? There's no one and nothing here to fight," he pronounced, gesturing with his arm at the dusk-shrouded savannah. "In fact, we should be getting back to the waterhole and shelter before something shows up that _will_ require us to fight. Come on, I saw a nice hollow under a slab of rock there that shouldn't take us too long to expand," beckoning upstream with his right hand.

He just didn't get it. "No Jack, I meant there might be hyenas! And they'll be after the cubs soon in there. The Elephant Graveyard," she implored, pointing at the shadowed, misty place only a quarter mile away, one where sinister forces and creatures had to be closing in, even as she spoke, on two new innocent, oblivious offerings.

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**Yeah, I know, Ann's sudden worry for the cubs might seem a bit unconvincing, but just put yourself emotionally into her own reed shoes. Besides, it's a linchpin for the story's plot. If anyone else can think of a better way to motivate Darrow and Driscoll to go back into the graveyard, by all means tell me. Speaking of which, I have to give a preview.**

As Jack reached the firelit scene, coming to the edge with Ann close behind as he panted, the hyenas were rolling about below in fits of sick laughter at what they'd done to Zazu. Before the playwright could act, a new, defiant voice was heard, getting the attention of human and hyena alike. Standing on a ribcage was Simba with Nala, boldly chiding, "Hey, why don't you pick on someone your own size?" Pretending to mull it over, the tousled female said, "Like...YOU?" Horrified, Simba could only say, "Oops," as the female lunged with a snap at him. Even then, Jack felt his legs coil, then throw his body into the air, saying with a cool fury, "Actually, I totally agree with him," as he felt himself crash onto the coarse, reeking back of the talking male, tackling him to the rock.


	11. Hyenas and Heroism

I feel good, duh duh duh duh, I know that I would... Okay, enough singing from me. Once again, I've churned out a chapter in excellent time. This chapter is where the story really gets going now, and although it's still canon, I personally think I've actually outdone myself for once. I tried especially hard to get Mufasa's character down right here.

As an aside, when Simba and Nala are under attack in the graveyard, am I the only one who feels that Mufasa arrived unnaturally fast? They'd have had to have some help to make it that long in reality. Plus, in East Africa the typical territory for a lion pride covers from 10-16 square miles. Assuming Pride Rock would be at its center, that basically translates into a helluva long way for Mufasa to run! There's great displays of sarcasm and courage by Jack as a result here.

Finally, Mzima means "alive" in Swahili. As always, a profuse thanks to my reviewers and enjoy the reading!

This chapter has been slightly revised to eliminate some repitious parts.

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_No, I do not like the hyena! I like neither the look of him, nor the smell of him, nor his habits, nor the sound of him. He is a pest, and a particularly evil one at that. He is the kind of creature on whom men do not waste good bullets, because poisoned food is both more effective and more appropriate._ Cherry Kearton, _In The Land of the Lion_, 1929.

_And he was the demon of my dreams, the most handsome of all angels. His victorious eyes blazed like steel… "Will you go with me?" he asked. "Never! Tombs and dead bodies frighten me!" Yet his hand took mine in its iron grip. "You will go with me."_ From a poem by Antonio Machado.

_The lion is a gentleman-if allowed to go his own way unmolested, he will keep to his own path and will not encroach on yours._ Carl Akeley.

Sucking air, Jack felt completely, amazingly elated inside. Despite his serious misgivings about Ann throwing her caution completely to the wind during the lion prince's astounding little song-and-dance number with so many big, powerful, animals running around, he actually _had _come to enjoy the madcap performance almost as much as she did near the end. Riding Quigga had probably been the best part of all.

Buffalo Jones, "The Last of the Plainsmen," might've caught a giraffe alive with lassos from horseback, but could he top _riding _one-bareback, no less!-like Jack Driscoll had just done? What an absolute blast.

_I'll be getting onto a rhino's back for a ride next at this rate,_ he mentally predicted with mild amusement, watching the female black rhino wandering off through the corner of his eye. Buffalo Jones had also subdued one with lassos, for that matter.

Now though, elation had more or less given way to complete confusion and gnawing anxiety. He was keen to beat it back-preferably as fast as possible-to the waterhole, where he intended to dig out the space underneath a nice granite outcrop he'd seen into a proper sleeping chamber, get inside with Ann, and screen it off with reeds and brush. Then they'd cross their fingers and hope to God that they were lucky and no lions or leopards came in the night to sample a new delicacy.

And now Ann was sowing true bemusement in Jack's mind by claiming that they should take a risky side trip and go _back _into that stygian, creepy place they'd originally come out of, to act as saviors for two of these aforementioned creatures who probably weren't and wouldn't be in danger anyway. As much as he loved and respected her with all his heart, and could understand her point of view, Jack felt Ann's concerns were unwarranted in this case, when the cubs would be okay.

But if their worried parents came looking and discovered them with Simba and Nala, the writer was pretty sure that he and Ann wouldn't be.

"Ann, you don't know for a fact that hyenas are in there," Jack gently told her, hoping to make her realize that she was just getting upset over a non-issue. "We didn't even see anything alive in the graveyard, remember?"

"Yes there is Jack!" Ann firmly shot, startling him as alarm flashed across her eyes. "We might not have seen anything, but we sure did _hear_ something. Don't tell me you didn't hear that cackle-you stood to protect me from its maker, for God's sake!"

Oh, he certainly had heard it, the screaming, devilish cry creeping up again like a perverted vine to distastefully fuse with the even more chilling trills of amusement the natives had made in his mind. It made his throat muscles clench, and Jack immediately wiped his mental slate mercifully clean of the filth on it.

"I thought at first that it had been a demon," Ann continued, shifting her eyes back and forth anxiously in the place's direction, "but now that I know we're in Africa, what else could it be?"

"There's really no other option," a hesitant Jack admitted. "Still," he supplied in a weak attempt to trump his own growing unease for the cubs, "it doesn't mean that they'll actually cross paths. There could be only one in there for all we know."

"Besides," he continued with a faked grin, volunteering a mildly forced optimism, "I'm sure the cubs will just be in and out. Either they'll see what they meant to see, then leave, or they'll react like I did whenever I 'ran away to join the circus' as a boy. You know, you pack up your toys in a bag, storm off until you either realize that it's getting dark or that you feel so alone all of a sudden, and decide the big wide world is way out of your league."

"Maybe so Jack," Ann pointed out in increasing agitation, "but we didn't have a predator nine or ten times my size shadowing us! And even if there's just one, we can't just turn away as long as there's a chance that they might meet up with it! I'm not," she decreed with a surprising, and to Jack even pleasing, steely determination that hardened her eyes.

_Looks like you're caught between a rock and a dark place once again, Mr. Driscoll,_ Jack thought, briefly casting his eyes upward before sucking air into his mouth and exhaling in a soft, meditative sigh. Skull Island had proved to his astonished surprise that Jack Driscoll was quite a bit gutsier than even he'd thought himself to be. As the cliché went, the playwright hadn't known he had it in him. But Jack's courage, his iron will, had all been brought into play to save Ann, the woman who he loved with his whole heart, his angel that he felt a fierce passion and profound responsibility towards. In contrast, Simba and Nala, as cute and vivacious as they were, were really just beasts that he barely knew. As much as it filled him with self-loathing to even think it, Jack had no obligation or emotional connection to them.

_So you're going to be the worst kind of coward then, show yourself to be a shameless hypocrite, huh Jack? _

Time and again, Jack had made the hopefully inspiring statement through his words and works that a truly altruistic, compassionate person doesn't just help out loved ones and friends, but also total strangers as well, even it meant risking injury. Turning away would be like turning his back on all his morals. Answering his own question, Jack Driscoll silently, yet zealously, told himself, _No._

Last but not least, helping to check on, or maybe having to actually save Simba and Nala, would clearly appease and gratify Ann. It would show that yes, Jack would do _anything_ for her that she asked of him, and was still the sweet hero, manipulative as it sounded to a part of his soul.

Concluding that he couldn't practice this increasingly flimsy self-denial any longer, and now becoming oddly worked up himself with a worry for Simba and Nala, Jack felt his facial muscles tense in a thin smile of both pride and resigned acceptance before telling Ann, "Guess you've got a point there. They might as well have some sensible adults to go along as chaperones, right?"

Grateful delight lit up a thankful Ann's face, and without warning, her palms shot out and smoothly, warmly enveloped each lean cheek before she lightly kissed Jack on his lips with a pecking motion before telling him, "Now that's the brave Jack Driscoll I know and adore! Come on, let's go!"

Coming back down to earth from the ecstatic thrill of her appreciative kiss, Jack smiled before humorously responding, "Well hey, if we walk and swim and talk together, then we'll execute a lion cub rescue together too," regarding her focused cornflower eyes as they both broke into a run. Then, the playwright and the actress, moved to a dangerous mission of mercy, raced for the dusky, cragged, and tortured open valley at a speed that seemed to almost match that of the painted dogs.

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Jogging to a stop, Jack stopped with Ann at the graveyard's lip, catching his breath and scanning to get his bearings. It seemed that this part of the elephant graveyard was quite a bit further north than the one the two of them had originally "appeared" in. There was only a small, five or six foot drop to enter at this place. 

"Their pawprints are over here Jack," Ann informed him, pointing to the right from her position behind him. Indeed they were, and for that matter, it seemed that of all the incongruous things, the two cubs had actually even been playing when they dropped into the old ash and dust. As the playwright nodded in affirmation, it came to his mind that he definitely never would've been literally frolicking into a place like this.

For several instants, all too recent memories, ugly and hideous ones in every sense of the word, kept him hesitating on the graveyard's cusp with Ann. This sprawling mortuary, littered with bones and composed of broken, warped and hostile igneous rocks, dredged up blood-freezing mental films of the native village and the insect pit, reels that Jack wished with a passion could be smashed as easily as Carl's had been. Would he not just "merely" come within a scarring millimeter of brutally losing his life, but actually die for good here in this infernal land of mist and bone?

The graveyard had been eerie enough in the light of midmorning. Now though, shrouded in the dusky light, a miasma of mist and expelled gases drifting above as if produced by some giant that ate smoke like Lumpy, it was truly chilling. Suddenly, Jack was aware of Ann's fence of ribs touching his own softly but firmly through her slip, her supple hand clutching his uninjured shoulder. More than that though, Jack could feel a quivering emanating from her, as if Ann was freezing cold. But the truth hit him with a distressing shock. She was deeply scared too.

"Screw your courage to the sticking place," Jack thoughtfully coached, both to fortify himself and Ann as well, while he protectively clutched her around the waist.

"Absolutely," Ann agreed, holding his shoulder with both hands now as if to draw on his strength before letting go. Touching her own shoulder for reassurance, Jack then quickly looked into her worried eyes before crouching, then leaping back into hell, sending up a small puff of ash as his feet met the ground.

Turning and reaching up towards Ann, he offered, "Let me help you down," taking her weight in his arms before setting her down, the lotus blossom in her golden hair providing a form of respite in the relentlessly depressing gray and dirty white. After that, Jack then walked a few feet to the nearest elephant skeleton, and pulled loose a bone from a foreleg in the misty murk.

"Now that I have a weapon, let's go get those cubs out of here," Jack proclaimed with a nod and grin, mustering a brave confidence despite the uneasy clench in the pit of his stomach.

"The sooner the better," Ann added, looking around at the desolation around her.

Silently, Jack began to cautiously walk through the graveyard then with Ann at his side, providing a comfort to him even as he was a comfort to her. Perhaps the most fundamental rule behind any mission of assistance is: know where the party you're attempting to save is located. When Ann had been taken by the enormous ape, that bit had been painfully easy, her hair-raising shrieks of terror making it no trouble to locate her position even as they'd sliced at Jack's heart, wondering if each one would be his dame's last.

Here though, the cubs were making no sound, and Jack had to rely on sporadic tracks in the ash instead. It was a bit irritating that he had no idea exactly where to find them. And of course, another good rule is that if you're trying to retrieve someone from an area where dangerous beasts or enemy forces are present, it helps not to draw attention to yourself.

Warily walking, selecting each step he took through the bones, Jack was gripped by a powerful sense of paranoid _déjà vu_, feeling the same dreadful apprehension that he and Ann at least had felt in the seemingly empty village with its exposed catacombs and bamboo spears. Whether Carl felt, or even _could_ feel any trepidation of course, was very inconclusive.

Preston had commented, "It's deserted," but even then, Jack Driscoll had felt that the ringing silence surrounding the party, like the silence here, wasn't the type connected with abandonment, but a deliberate, cultivated, _kept_ species of stillness. When the savage, baleful-eyed girl had gone crazy on Carl, and more of her demon kin had burst out of nowhere, Jack had both been very unpleasantly surprised indeed, and ruefully telling himself, _I told you so,_ at the same time.

The silence here was one that grabbed you by the small of the back like a coyote capturing a rabbit, and cast your lower legs in concrete. Even as he strained for sounds, Jack felt like he was shuffling along the bottom of the ocean in a diving suit, heaving up and putting down one lead-sheathed foot in front of the other while his right hand squeezed Ann's heated one. Christ it was spooky, every sound they made seeming to reverberate in the stillness like a gunshot as the two of them crept along.

Pondering Simba and Nala's current location, and also wanting to break the terrible desolation, Jack thoughtfully questioned with hands on hips, "I wonder where they could be ou-"

The words were dramatically cut off then when the male cub's voice boldly rang out, "Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" _There they are!_ Immediately, Jack broke into a leaping run towards the sound, bone club swinging and Ann at his back.

A half second later, as if it had been practiced for the stage, came a twisted, mocking cackle in answer.

"No!" Ann yelled in pure fear, horror infusing her voice before she briefly looked at Jack with a wild, "See, what did I tell you?" expression in her eyes before breaking into a full, crashing sprint, lotus bobbing alongside her cheekbone like a colored lantern.

Instead of wasting precious time by admitting that her instincts had been right on the money, Jack instantly shifted gear himself, arms and legs churning while he vaulted skeletons and prayed, _Christ, please let us be in time!_

Although he heard no cries of distress as of yet, if one or more hyenas had gotten hold of the cubs, he and Ann would probably have thirty seconds, maybe less, before Simba and Nala would be beyond any chance of help.

With the longer legs, Jack found himself looking at the scene from a little ridge several seconds before Ann arrived herself, and went into a crouching position.

Instead of just one, there were three hyenas, sturdy, rough-coated creatures circling the cubs on their long muscular legs like thugs as a quaking Zazu tried his best to shield them with his wings. The largest one had something like wild bangs over its forehead, a smaller one bore a roguish, sneering type of expression, and a similar sized one had eyes with pupils that pointed crazily in separate directions, tongue hanging out of its mouth as it drooled, making it seem as if the beast was completely hopped up.

They reminded him more vividly of the cannibals than he would've liked, and Jack couldn't help but give a viscous, strangled slow gulp of fear, back muscles tightening at the sight of what seemed to be three of those pierced demons now made beast.

_They'd probably get along just great together,_ the playwright grimly contemplated.

As Jack turned to frantically considering what was the best plan of action, and even more importantly whether he could truly hope to take on a trio, Zazu was saying, in a hurried, harried, trembling voice, "My, my, my. Look at the sun," as he tried to get the two lion cubs to make haste in earnest. "It's time to go!"

"What's the hurry?" the large tousled one, female from her voice, coolly commented with mock amiability as she threateningly blocked off the cub's retreat. "We'd loooovvvvve you to stick around for dinner."

At that instant, Ann was at Jack's side. On seeing that there was more than one hyena to contend with, she gasped, and then drew back in trepidation, as she blanched. Jack could sense her confidence level go down-but only for a few moments before adopting that bold reserve again. "What plan do you have to deal with the three of them Jack?" she asked, implored in a hushed, quick, unsteady voice.

Meanwhile, the hard-boiled, surly-looking one was making his own disgustingly grotesque joke, exclaiming, "Yeaaaahh! We could have whatever's…lion around! Get it? Lion around?" as he cruelly laughed at his own taunting statement.

Inhaling sharply, Jack commandingly told Ann, "I'll rush in first, use the element of surprise, and engage the hyenas with my bone club, even my fists if need be. While they're distracted, you go grab Simba and Nala, or at least tell them to follow you, and I'll act as a rear guard until we're out of the graveyard and on level ground. The hyenas might stop at that point, but if they don't, I'll keep warding them off until we can all get to high rocks or a stable tree."

"I suppose that's the best way it could be done," Ann swiftly accepted. "And I could probably do some fighting myself if it comes to that," pursing her velvet lips with fear as she distractedly looked at the hyenas.

"Then let's go," Jack said in a steely growl, getting up from his crouch and intending to make it a charge. "Stay right at my back."

The cubs though, unintentionally threw a monkey wrench into Jack's martial plans at that moment. As the tousled female was united with the surly, sneering male in conniptions of laughter at another wicked joke she'd just made, one that seemed to have "a 'cub' sandwich" as the punchline, the psychotic one began jumping up and down like an organ grinder's monkey.

While he pointed with his front paws and produced nonsensical jabbering, the tousled female impatiently snapped, "What Ed? What is it?"

Following the direction of Ed's gesturing, Jack saw that Simba and Nala had sensibly taken this chance to make a break for it with Zazu as the speaking male put the playwright's realization into words with "Hey, did we order this dinner to go?"

"Aw, damn it," Jack snarled under his breath in frustration. The fact that both Simba and Nala were both running _deeper_ into the graveyard, which wouldn't make things any easier, didn't help the writer's mood either. To be fair though, the horrors of Skull Island and Jack's reactions to them had displayed to his chagrin that it was difficult sometimes to make the wise move _in extremis_.

At any rate, it couldn't be changed now, and Jack Driscoll leapt to his feet in tandem with Ann, running to try to keep on the cub's heels as the female responded, "No. Why?" in incomprehension.

"Cause there it goes!" the speaking male's voice rang out from behind them before the hyenas broke into a rocking run as well.

Desperately, Jack slapped together a game plan in his head even as he ran. Already, the cubs were leaving them in the dust. The hyenas too, couldn't possibly be gained on, and could cover far more difficult terrain than even the agile Ann could hope to. The Maasai refer to spotted hyenas as "the lame ones," due to their odd, partially paralyzed-looking posture, as if they were perpetually attempting to stand up on their hind legs like the bears they somewhat resemble, and their bobbing, semi-crippled gait when running. But although they may not be efficient or graceful runners, they are far from lame indeed, able to run thirty-five miles an hour for a distance of four miles. They are marathon runners, exhibiting awesome stamina.

Even though it wasn't the shortest one, the best, only path to take was the one of least resistance _and_ one that would allow the writer and Ann to intercept Simba and Nala in time.

Looking over her shoulder, Ann cried out as she saw the hyenas, "They're coming up too fast Jack!"

"That's okay," Jack panted out as he saw a good side route through the huge bones. "Just stick with me and we'll get to the cubs first if we hurry."

Pounding over the rock, vaulting huge bones and napping geysers,-_Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, _a part of him crazily thought-Jack raced to reach the golden spots that he knew were on the other side of the rock hill. As for Ann, he couldn't help but notice in amazement, even some envy, that her petite, springy body didn't miss a beat.

Turning a hard left, Jack then hurdled an elephant pelvis, came to a stop as he got to the point in the cub's flight path where he thought he and Ann would be fifteen or twenty feet in front of them-and found that they weren't there!

_Oh Jesus,_ he thought wildly, although he didn't think the hyenas could've caught up to them without the cubs making at least one loud scream.

"There they are Jack!" Ann exclaimed, pointing at two golden patches disappearing over a rise in the path, going _back_ in the direction of the hyenas! Zazu was nowhere to be seen.

Jack realized in startling succession that the hyenas had almost certainly captured the hornbill, and that Simba and Nala, despite the playful abuse they'd just administered, were valiantly trying to save their friend.

Despite the fact that it was somewhat exasperating, it was also very noble, and suddenly Jack felt a wowed fellowship with the cubs, taking on near-impossible odds and rushing into danger to save someone they cared for. It was the spitting image of what he'd done, against all hope, for Ann on Skull Island, and Jack Driscoll found himself admiring Simba and Nala to no end for it.

But respectful appreciation would have to be put on hold, and composing a new real life action scene in his head, Jack breathed out, "Okay, enough of this path of least resistance. We're just going to run back to the halfway point, then _climb_ straight up the ridge and meet them there. We'll save Zazu too if we can," he added, picking up on Ann's intended plea.

Pivoting on his right foot, Jack then flashed in the direction he'd come and tore over the bones and rocks on the same route with her. On coming to the halfway mark, he skidded to a stop, went right at the ridge, and scrambled up it with all the fierce rapidity he'd shown when climbing the great set of stairs to reach Ann. And now, she was right beside him, the two of them joined as one in their goal as they scrabbled upward.

After what seemed like an age, but was probably only two or three minutes, Jack found himself forcing his body over the ridge's crest. Standing, he saw that there was a sort of small granite mesa fourteen feet below, extending into a sort of hook. After checking to see that Ann was with him, blue lotus seeming like a piece of sky that refused to darken, he leapt down the incline, clutching the new limb bone as he felt his feet make impact with the rock.

Ann came two seconds later, and on hearing her heavy breathing; he turned to ask, "Are you okay?" She nodded in resolute response.

Resuming their rush across the mesa, Ann suddenly pointed to the right as they approached the hook's base, saying, "Their shadows Jack!" Slowing down, Jack's eyes registered the flickering shadows of all three hyenas, weird and imposingly huge in the light cast by some type of volcanic activity, like the figures of Javanese shadow puppets.

They were laughing wildly, and Zazu's oddly sedate voice protested then, "Oh no. Not the birdie boiler!" before there was a sudden gentle rumbling, the glow increased, and then Zazu came shooting into their view, Jack automatically grabbing Ann by the shoulder and pulling her behind his back as the hornbill shot over their heads and on to kingdom come like a blue and white artillery shell, steam trailing all the way. They'd shot him out of a steam vent.

"How could they do that?" Ann gasped, voicing Jack's shocked disgust perfectly. Jack Driscoll was a man who generally got on quite well with all sorts of individuals, no matter what their social level was. Even if their philosophies or behavior didn't exactly mesh with his own, the playwright would still be willing to put up with nearly anything a person could say or do in front of him, no matter how crude or foolish.

Still, there was one category of human being even Jack had absolute _zero_ tolerance for, and those were the bullies and the sadists. He heartily agreed with the stable hand from _Black Beauty_ indeed that cruelty was the devil's trademark. It looked like the hyenas fell squarely into that contemptible category, and a small flame of self-righteous anger spurred Jack onward.

As Jack reached the geologically lighted scene, coming to the mesa's edge with Ann close behind as he panted and tightened his right hand around the club, the hyenas were rolling around below in fits of sick laughter at what they'd done to poor Zazu.

Before the playwright could act, a new, defiant voice was heard then, getting the attention of both human and hyena alike. Standing on a ribcage was Simba with Nala, boldly chiding, "Hey, why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

Pretending to mull it over, the tousled female cocked her head and said, "Like…YOU?"

Horrified, Simba could only say "Oops," as the female lunged with a wicked snap of her jaws at him.

Automatically, Jack felt the muscles of his legs coil, then launch his body off the mesa and into the air as he said with a cool fury, "Actually, I totally agree with him," right before crashing onto his target, the coarsely furred, reeking back of the speaking, surly male and tackling him to the rock.

Caught completely by surprise and under attack by an alien creature, the hyena uttered a piercing, grating shriek of panic as Jack's body hit him, thrashing wildly and then trying to administer a bite in self-defense.

"Look out Jack!" Ann shouted, still on the mesa. Immediately, Jack gripped the bone cudgel in both hands and shoved it crosswise into the hyena's mouth, pushing up and away even as he got to his feet.

For a few moments, they all just stared at each other, the panting male and his companions gazing at the two aggressive humans in a disbelieving stupor.

"By the Great Goddess, you're humans!" the speaking male pronounced in awe.

"That's right Dango," Jack spat in bold contempt as Ann came down herself to join him, using the name for hyenas in the Tarzan novels.

Instantly, the male's face took on an insulted, disdainful expression. "Dango? My name's _not _Dango pal, it's Banzai. B-A-N-Z-E-Y-…Uh…"

"Don't tell me you don't even know how to spell your own name," Jack said in disbelief, shaking his head in a tsk-tsk way. Were they truly that stupid?

Snapping out of her amazed trance then, the female commanded, "Banzai, how about you for_get_ about these freakazoids, and _get_ the cubs!" even as she began to continue the pursuit.

As Banzai obeyed, Jack looked at Ann's eyes for any hope of an answer, their brows both furrowed into ridges of confusion as they said together in total incomprehension, "Freakazoids!" Although Jack could tell that it was a derogatory term, he'd never heard anything remotely like it before. Probably meant that they were odd ducks.

"Guess it must be some sort of hyena slang," he dismissed out loud before he and Ann pressed on. As they leapt over the ribcage, Jack saw with horror that the hyenas were now actually hard on and snapping at Simba and Nala's heels. But both were still moving much too fast!

"Oh for the love of Goodness!" Ann helplessly pleaded as Simba and Nala barely avoided a snap from the female's jaws, vaulting over a huge skull, its deceased owner's ribcage and spine pointing downhill.

_Pointing downhill!_

"Ann, we have one last chance, but if we can pull this off right, it's also the best one we have," Jack stammered out as he peeled off to the right and tore down the slope in a curve. To his immense gratitude, they attained the bottom of the wide ravine right on schedule, and he heard the cubs stuttering as they went down the vertebrae slide. If the situation hadn't been so grave, Jack would've laughed out loud.

"Get ready," Ann told him.

"I'm definitely ready!"

Simba and Nala came flying out into the misty air then, and with feline grace, like he'd practiced for it, Jack leapt up and grabbed Simba in midair by the scruff of the neck, while Ann did the same with Nala.

Immediately, both cubs screamed in terror, writhing and scratching at their saviors. Even though they only weighed fifteen to twenty pounds, the cubs already had powerful muscles, powering their frantic struggles.

"Jesus Christ, calm down little fella!" Jack commandingly gasped as Simba yowled and clawed at him.

"It's alright, you're fine!" Ann shouted, trying to sound as soothing and reassuring as possible while frantically holding a writhing Nala at arm's length. "We aren't going to hurt you!"

Coming to his senses first, Simba relaxed in Jack's grip, looking at him, then Ann, before saying, "You're not? And who are you guys?"

"More like _what_ are you guys?" Nala added in amazement.

The hyenas were running down the slope now, and Ann hurriedly said, "No, we want to help. And just think of us for now as two-legged guardian angels," putting Nala's slim tan form around her shoulders and scrambling up the other side.

"At least one of which has a rather vexing and bizarre white knight complex," Jack muttered out loud before putting Simba over his right shoulder and following his lover's example.

Then, as Jack joined Ann in crawling to the slope's top, mashing his weight onto the bone club with each movement of his right arm, Nala suddenly lost her balance, falling off Ann's shoulders and slipping down the conglomeration of loose bones as two feminine voices shrieked wordlessly in tandem.

"Oh God Jack, I dropped her!" Ann screamed in horrified guilt. Equally horrified at what he saw, Simba immediately vaulted off Jack's shoulder before the playwright could even think of restraining him, going right for his friend.

"Simba, don't take any wooden nickels!" Jack yelled. But instantly he connected with what the cub was doing and shut up, turning to slide down the slope himself feet first. In an amazing gesture of courage, Simba leapt over Nala, clawing the leading female across the cheek, drawing blood before retreating.

Infuriated, the female snarled, then leapt at Simba, about to catch him by the tail. At that instant though, Jack arrived, reflexively kicking her as hard as he could in the jaw. As Simba fled to safety, the hyena then tried to retaliate with a clash of jaws that could support her own weight.

Jack was ready though. Grabbing the hyena by her muscle-packed throat with his right hand, enveloped in a carrion reek as he shoved on her chest with his left, Jack got up leverage and _threw_ the beast right down the slope, tumbling down to bowl over Banzai and Ed.

_I bested you,_ he thought with a momentary flash of smugness before rejoining Ann and the cubs, now running on the ground.

Being faster, Simba and Nala were at the front, just running blindly. Seeing where they were headed from her higher vantage point, Ann shouted, "Don't run into there! You'll be trapped!"

Coming to their senses as Jack assessed the possibilities for escape, the cubs stopped and blinked, Simba responding, "Oh. Thanks." Then he and Nala swerved in a different direction, and ran right into another cul-de-sac before Jack or Ann could even react.

"No little fellas, not that way! Follow us," Jack gaspingly ordered, breath coming hard.

"Get moving," Ann pleaded, "otherwise the hyenas will back us all into a-"

"Corner?" the female hyena's voice suggested from behind them with a smug coolness.

Whipping around and brandishing the bone club, Jack saw her standing in the fissure's entrance, Banzai and Ed on either side of her. Backing up, bracing himself for the fight he expected, the playwright could see Ann almost seem to shrink inside herself and helplessly quiver, the cubs doing the same as all three got behind his form.

Ears laid back, the female began to stalk like a wolf towards them, Jack standing tall and looking at her eyes. "Oh, there's no need to be all confrontational or cower in fear humans," she sneeringly addressed them. "We're only interested in the cubs, that's all."

"Allow me to introduce myself by the way. My name's Shenzi, and I've come to take what's mine," she said with a wicked smile.

"Yeah, the cubs," Banzai cackled, circling off to the left to lower his head and get a better look at the golden forms as Jack tensely tracked him. "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty," he mocked. "Come out to play!"

Ed just crazily laughed like a loon, tongue flopping. He looked uncannily like one of Jack's old university friends, Archie Tavernini, whenever he'd have too much to drink. As for the joke, Jack didn't think it funny in the least.

"Leave them alone!" Ann shouted, picking up a loose rock, and in an astoundingly brave gesture that Jack couldn't believe, came up right alongside him, helping to put up a bold front as she chucked the stone in Banzai's direction.

"Whoa!" the hyena yelped in surprise, leaping aside before it could hit him. Even if Banzai hadn't though, it unfortunately would've missed him anyway.

Jack Driscoll was amazed. He'd been astounded enough to hear Ann tell about how she'd actually, unbelievably slapped the ape's hand away. But to actually see her do something like that in front of him, standing up to an enemy with such pluck, was at a level Jack found both immensely admirable and shockingly unreal.

Meanwhile, taking it in, Shenzi's mouth corners turned upward in a sardonic smile before she drawled, "Aww. That was so cute. Toss another one, by all means. Let's see if now you can actually hit us with a rock." Banzai and Ed went into a round of hysterical laughter, Ann reacting like she'd been struck, lips parting-but that was before pure electric fury shot up Jack's spine, and like a striking snake, his arm flashed at the ground while he bent over, keeping hostile eyes on the hyenas.

Growing up on Manhattan's streets as a boy, Jack had been a fairly accomplished baseball and stickball pitcher. He hadn't had to toss a pitch since 1921, but his body still remembered vividly, even if his intellect didn't.

With a flick of his arm, an apple sized rock went flying into space, hitting Ed right in his drooling mouth and sending him flying back a couple feet, the hyena's cackling becoming a shriek of pain. As Ed clutched at his mouth, Jack pointed a bristling finger at them, menacingly snarling, "The bastard who has the gall to insult or mock Ann with their mouth is going to get my fist or a rock in theirs."

Taken aback and suddenly a bit more respectful, Shenzi just said, "Okay," as she looked at Jack's heaving body. Still, they weren't going to go anywhere.

Even if it might've been just the heat in his blood, Jack felt confident that he and Ann could take the hyenas on, or even better bluff them into leaving before anyone came to blows. Most mammals that live and even more importantly fight in groups, including humans and spotted hyenas, are quite good at instinctively assessing both the numbers of the opposing side and their demeanor. That in turn, decrees if the home team will decide to enter into the fray themselves, and what their strategy will be if they do.

In both the native village and the unholy chasm, Jack had known in his heart that the battle would be one where he'd ultimately die trying, a crushing feeling of helpless sadness flowing over him. Each time, it had only been Englehorn's near-divine intervention that had spared him, even if he hadn't been awake for the first.

But this time, things were on a more level playing field for once, two against three. And of course, once you'd gone up against Skull Island's oversized killers, the "everyday" ones just didn't seem all that intimidating anymore. Even as he thought it, he heard Ann move off cautiously to the left, reaching down to pick up a loose elephant rib bone even as fear shone in her eyes. She intended to use it as a jabbing weapon, he realized in amazement. Yes, this time it was a much fairer fight, and Jack Driscoll was now the one wielding the club today, Ann ready to join him.

Behind him, he heard a shaking Nala pleading to Ann, "Help. Don't let them eat us."

"We won't if we have anything to say about it," Ann responded through her own fear with both determination and tenderness.

Even more importantly, Jack could see in the wary eyes of the hyenas that they were deeply uncertain about their prospects, had a bad feeling about attacking directly. He'd perceived it flickering about them before he'd even had cause to throw a missile in fact, and knew from what he'd read of the beasts that they were skulking, craven creatures, cowards who attacked the helpless in the night.

But most of all, the playwright again could see the cannibal savages and their wrongness, their hideousness, their wickedness, the terror and mental cruelty they'd inflicted on his angelic, unsullied Ann.

On this occasion, knowing the hyenas would do the same thing to Simba and Nala if they could, and his blood heated with deep fury, not the usual cold terror as Jack pondered the natives, he was staring daggers. Fear and trembling had given way to boldness and hatred. Even Ed was smart enough to recognize the transition, and it gave Jack Driscoll a strange swirl of pleasure that he could tell that the hyenas could tell.

Hyenas prefer to take the path of least resistance when obtaining meat. Remarkably craven they may be around humans, although they are anything but that when it comes to their dealings with the other creatures that share their world. They regularly swipe lion kills, chase down and kill wildebeest singlehandedly, can pull down Cape buffalo in larger groups, and will even dare to attack and harass rhino calves with the angry mother present. There are few animals they won't attempt to slaughter when the odds are in their favor, ripping and crunching with jaws that can practically squeeze blood out of a stone, as the saying goes.

All the same, if a hyena doesn't have to go to undue trouble to obtain a meal, it won't. Every member of the trio had least once been bitten at and wildly kicked at by the hooves of a zebra stallion defending his mares, bowled over by a wildebeest cow protecting her calf, and chased away by a surly male baboon, baring enormous fangs that could mortally wound a leopard. It was obvious the male human was prepared to adopt the same role.

Apparently trying to negotiate, Shenzi breathed in before obsequiously stating, in as diplomatic and cajoling a tone as possible, "Look humans, what happens between us hyenas and the cubs isn't your problem. Just step aside and let us get to work. We'll even wait until you're out of earshot so you don't have to hear it. And we're quick killers, trust us."

"Yeah, we'll just shake em' really hard and snap their necks so they don't feel a thing!" Banzai excitedly supplied while Ed nodded through the pain of his broken tooth.

As Ann gasped in disgusted horror, a hand flying up to her mouth as the cubs whimpered and cringed even further back, Jack shaking his head at the callous statement, Shenzi neutrally rebuked, "Not the kind of platitude I would've chosen, Banzai," before turning back for Jack's reaction.

Turning to look out of the corner of his eye over his shoulder, Jack saw the frightened eyes of the lion cubs, ears laid back as they returned trusting, believing gazes to him. Facing the hyenas again, the writer snapped, "Sorry fellas, but there's no chance of negotiation here."

Rolling her eyes, Shenzi lowered her head and gave out groaning, cowlike lows, as hyenas will do when impatient or exasperated, Banzai joining her. "We just want to have two lion cubs humans," she told them in a beggar's voice. "If you insist on being difficult, it's not going to be to anyone's self-interest. And you know what we might have to do then," she threatened, eyes narrowing ominously.

In spite of his fear, Jack gave a condescending, cheery crooked smile before suggesting, "Yes. Leave Christ-fearing people and lion cubs alone, then go home and chase yourselves. Then have fun sucking eggs," he needled for good measure.

Clearly too dumb to get it, Ed leapt to full attention and began rushing back and forth, searching for nonexistent eggs before Banzai cuffed him, growling, "He's not saying there's real eggs moron! He's making a dig at us!"

Smirking with odd pleasure, Jack told Ann, "Too bad all hyenas aren't mute like Ed."

"Then we wouldn't have to listen to them talk," Ann quipped back.

"But compared to Ed, all the other hyenas make him look like Albert Einstein or Benjamin Franklin, a genius in other words," Jack mocked, causing the trio to snarl in resentment.

"You have a pretty smart mouth buddy for not having any real teeth in it," Banzai growled back.

"Well, you won't have to listen to my gums beat if you just go away," Jack offered with a shrug for emphasis.

Lowing again in impatience, Shenzi shot pointedly, "Insults aren't going to accomplish anything. For the final time humans, here's the ultimatum: Let us have the cubs!"

"Over my dead body," Jack growled, although he didn't mean it literally of course.

"Then that can be arranged," Shenzi said grimly as a frightened Ann's eyes widened to the size of the lotus bloom and she gave a sharp little shivering intake of breath.

"Yeah, I've always liked trying new kinds of meat," Banzai added with a wicked grin as he began to stalk forward, all three hyenas now lined up shoulder to shoulder like toughs, with tails fluffed up and arched over their backs to show their aggressive intentions.

_Oh Jesus, here we go now,_ Jack thought in terror, gulping as he raised the bone club, Ann behind and beside him, holding out her rib-bone spear. The bluffing hadn't worked and now there was no other choice left. The back end of the fissure was twice as high as he was. It did however, have a crack running down it at an angle, and a person could fit their hands and feet into it to climb out.

Before the trio could close, Jack whispered to Ann, "There's a crack running down the back face. Grab one of the cubs, put them over your shoulders, and climb out. I'll defend the other one in the meantime. When that one is safe, climb halfway back down and I'll throw the other one back up to you, then climb out myself."

"No Jack!" Ann pleaded. "They'll rip you apart if you go up against them alone! Let me help you!"

"Don't even argue!" Jack barked. "Climb!"

Then there was no more time as the battle was joined. Shenzi bored in first, and Jack swung the cudgel, hitting her on the snout. Giving a short scream, the hyena retreated in a sideways run, and he had to desperately turn to whack Banzai, who was leaping up at Jack with the intent to bite the playwright, and then knock him down.

The bone came down across the hyena's shoulders, Jack kicking Ed in the face at the same time. As Banzai drew back, Shenzi came for him again, and Jack 's club connected with a foreleg, sending her sprawling and tumbling across the rock.

He was dimly aware of Ann trying her best to climb the crack in the rock, trying to hold onto Nala at the same time. Unfortunately, this left Simba without any protection, and as Jack was kept busy frantically whacking at Ed with his back to the rock, Shenzi saw the chance to get what she'd really come for, rushing at the cub.

"Simba!" Nala yelled.

"No! No!" Ann shrieked impotently from about eight feet above Jack.

With Shenzi closing in, bone-cracking, stinking jaws opening wide, Simba defiantly raised his hackles and bared his teeth, giving a wild, ineffectual yowl.

Despite everything, Ann protesting through her tears "Let him be you tramp!" Shenzi stopped and laughed.

"That was it? Hah. Do it again. Come on," she taunted, even as Jack madly tried to beat back the two males, who were starting to lose interest now that their true goal was in their paws, and get to the lion prince at the same time.

Unbowed, Simba opened his mouth again-but this time the air-shaking roar of an adult male lion came out. Everyone, including Jack and Ann stopped what they were doing, and went, "Huh?"

A second later, Jack assumed in terror that the ape had somehow arrived here. At the same moment, a startled Ann lost her grip on both the rock and Nala, giving a piercing scream as she fell towards the solid stone ten feet below.

Instantly, Jack shot forward, catching Ann behind the knees with the left arm, dropping the bone to grab her around the small of her back with the right as she seized his shoulders with each hand in turn. Jack had only enough time to loudly grunt as the impact of her body went through his own lanky one like the shock wave from an explosion, spreading his legs and squatting so as not to be knocked to the ground.

Two instants after that, an absolutely huge red-maned male lion sprung at the hyenas from the right of Jack's vision, cuffing them with sledgehammer blows that far surpassed anything the playwright could've ever administered, gouging with his hooked claws, and snarling savagely as he slammed all three of them to the rock on their backs, looming over the reeking beasts as they cringed in abject terror.

At the same time, Ann clutching his neck, Jack tore for the mouth of the fissure even as he still carried her sidesaddle in his arms. But her weight was slowing him down, and changing tactics he lowered Ann to the ground and took her hand as they dove into a seven-foot long narrow alcove in the rock, Jack yanking his love behind him as he pressed his back against her.

They couldn't possibly hope to outrun an angry lion, for these tawny felines can cover the length of a football field in six seconds, and have been known to chase down men on horseback. The best thing to do was just to take cover, nerves humming until the huge cat had dealt with the hyenas, collected the cubs, then calmed down and gone away.

As for the trio, they were visibly terrified out of their minds, expecting to die.

"Oh please, please. Uncle, uncle." Shenzi gaspingly implored.

"Ow. Ow. Ow." Banzai squealed.

The lion, obviously Mufasa, half roared, "Silence!" to make the hyenas shut up with their inane babbling.

His guts feeling like jelly at the sound, knees shaking as he felt Ann's slim body thrumming like a plucked guitar string against his own, Jack weakly told himself, "He'll have no opposition here."

Either too stupid or too scared to get the message, Banzai jabbered hysterically, "Oh, we're gonna shut up right now."

"Calm down. We're really sorry," Shenzi placated.

As Jack felt his lips twitching, Mufasa, eyes coals, growled in ominous threat, "If you ever come near my son again…" letting it hang.

"Oh this is…this is _your_ son!" Shenzi almost yowled, turning to look at Banzai with an "I know nutting" look in her eyes.

"Oh, your son?" Banzai played along, fake shock and astonishment in his tone.

The two of them repeated their vociferous protestations of innocence, just like Jack, scorn roiling in his breast despite his panic, had seen bullies and criminals do so many times before in New York, claiming that good blessed Christ, they'd had no _idea_ that this cub was King Mufasa's!

_Yeah right and I'm Vice President Charles Curtis_, Jack mentally scoffed in derision.

Then, Shenzi and Banzai turned for collaboration to their mute companion, hopefully questioning, "Ed?"

In an unbelievable, unimaginable display of stupidity, Ed nodded yes in response instead of denying it.

With a roar of anger that seemed to shake the rock walls around him and Ann, Mufasa allowed the hyenas to scramble to their paws and hastily run off, Banzai saying "Toodles!" as they disappeared.

Zazu began to light in front of Mufasa, when the lion king suddenly turned, and to Jack's absolute horror, gazed right into their alcove, growling deeply, "It's no use hiding humans. Come out."

Ann gave a shaking gasp as Jack kept his position, too terrified to move as ice cubes formed in his clenched stomach.

"Come _out_!" Mufasa commanded in a half roar that made Jack almost scream. He was right though, it truly was no use hiding. Feeling like a prisoner on death row walking to the electric chair in Sing Sing, teeth grinding together and his muscles quaking, Jack Driscoll, Ann gulping from against his back, walked out into the open, facing the animal that he knew was finally going to kill him. All that could be done was to face the lion king like a man and die bravely.

In a throbbing blanket of fear, Jack despairingly remembered the words of the painted dog leader who shared his name.

_Make no mistake about it, the lions are savage brutes, and I'd do my utmost to avoid them if I were you Jack and Ann. Don't have more to do with them than you can help. In fact, just don't be anywhere nearby at all._

Well, he'd tried. Christ knew how he'd tried not to cross paths with the kings and queens of the cats. But those efforts hadn't been good enough, and now the playwright was going to be executed just for trying to help, to his gall and terror.

Before he fully exposed himself, Jack suddenly turned and crushed Ann's slender body against his in what he knew would be their last embrace, saying in a pleading mutter, "When he goes for me Ann, just run. Run as fast as you can. Don't look back or try to save me. I don't want him to get you too."

The worst-case scenario had come to pass, and Jack knew with a horrid finality that Mufasa wasn't going to offer any quarter. He empathetically couldn't stand to think of Ann falling victim as well, or having to see her lover thrashing helplessly in the lion's crunching jaws for her final glimpse of Jack Driscoll.

As Westerners, the only direct contact most of us will have with lions is seeing them at the zoo, on TV, or at the circus. We are accustomed to think of them as the regal King of the Beasts, huge, affectionate golden felines who exemplify features of both our own house cats and the wild, noble nature we want to find in our own souls. Lazily stretched out like tawny mounds of muscle in the grass, going about their favorite activity of sleeping or languidly resting as they flick their tails, whether in the zoo or in the wild, it can seem as if one could go and approach, even walk among them, petting their velvet coats.

But this is empathetically not so. Most of the time, lions _are_ benign creatures, getting on well enough with humans. When lions encounter people on foot, their reaction is predictable: They leap up and run away with a startled _whoof _, or retreat to a generous distance to assuage their curiosity from afar. If there is plenty of cover around, the lion that detects a person will just hunker down and sit tight until he or she has gone away, or cautiously get to its feet and silently slink away, the person never having had any inkling that the big cat was even there.

Of course, there are always grisly exceptions to the rule. Only a century ago, tens of thousands of native Africans were slain each year by lions. Several hundred still are.

Both Jack and Ann were familiar with perhaps the most horrific and disturbing of all accounts of man-eating lions, Colonel James Patterson's spine-chilling _The Man-eaters of Tsavo_, about a pair of male lions who audaciously preyed on railway workers in 1898, temporarily halting the Kenya-Uganda railroad's construction, taking an estimated one hundred and thirty-six lives before Patterson shot them.

Fourteen years in their future, an entire _pride_ of man-eating lions would hold sway in 1947 Zambia, the Man-Eaters of Njombe killing an astonishing 1500 people, local blacks and white colonists alike, before every last member was hunted down and destroyed.

Yes, a lion may seem imperially regal and laid-back in the zoo or on a game drive. But when, like Mufasa was doing now, he's producing deep grunts, tail lashing in anger, huge coral and ivory mouth open to reveal four-inch fangs, blazing amber eyes seeming to burn holes into your cringing brain, mane bristling in a furry corona as if charged by an electrode-then he is truly terrifying beyond words, right where it's primal fear.

There is a very good reason why the Maasai consider the ritual lion hunt as the rawest, greatest test of bravery a man can face, and never refer to the lion by name, but out of mixed respect and fear fittingly call the big cat olowuaru-kitok, the big carnivore. They know the power of this creature, magnificence and savagery all rolled into one, only too well.

A lion doesn't even have to bother with biting or clawing a man to kill him in fact. All the cat has to do is give a good swing of its paw, powered by a forelimb that Carl Akeley estimated as being two to three, maybe even four times stronger than a man's, and the poor guy or gal is felled by the blow.

There was absolutely no hope for Jack's survival, but it gave him a degree of frigid comfort to know that as long as he kept on fighting, struggling, punching, moving, the lion would stay at his grisly work until the cat had finished it, providing Ann with plenty of time for escape.

If she chose to take it of course.

Refusing, she told him defiantly, "No Jack! I'm not going to flee and leave you to be killed!"

"That's noble to say Ann, but I have no hope anyway! Better me than you!"

"Stop stalling and come before me," Mufasa sternly growled.

"Best do as His Majesty says," Zazu thinly implored.

Every second seemed like a day as Jack Driscoll resignedly obeyed, Ann hanging back behind him. He just prayed that he'd go into Livingstone's famous shocked stupor quickly when the three-inch claws hooked him and the canines met in his flesh. Ann was finally backing away though to his relief, and he felt oddly proud, honored even, through his fear to be willingly throwing himself on the altar and baring his chest to the obsidian knife for her sake.

"Now," Mufasa said, eyes blazing, "what were you humans doing in company with the hyenas? If you were also trying to harm my son-"

Timorously coming forward, Simba then cautiously spoke in their defense, "Dad, they were trying to help save us. The male one even fought all three of the hyenas by himself!"

"We'd be dead by now if it wasn't for them," Nala added.

In an instant, the lion king's expression changed from accusing rage to astonished gratitude. "You went out of your way to save them?"

"Yes." Jack answered weakly. "I suppose you might as well repay me for it in the traditionally impulsive and ironic manner," he said with a thin, mirthless smile and resigned shrug. "But I beg of you, please don't hurt Ann!"

"Be at peace, I'm not going to lay a claw on either of you," Mufasa reassured them. There was still anger in his voice, but Jack was slowly coming to realize that this kind was merely directed at Simba, not at them, and he felt himself relax. A little bit.

"You could both have been hurt yourselves though, even killed. Why did you do such a risky thing?" the great lion inquired in awe.

"That's a question I've been repeatedly asking myself throughout the whole incident," Jack dryly said, trying to use humor to quell his jangling nerves.

"Maybe it's because we couldn't have lived with ourselves and just didn't want to see the cubs die," Ann thoughtfully suggested.

"Well, whatever the motive, I am profoundly grateful," Mufasa told them in purring relief.

All trace of fury at them was gone, and the playwright was pretty sure that this was the lion king's normal voice they were hearing. To be true, Jack Driscoll had never exactly sat down and pondered what the voice of a male lion would sound like if it had the gift of speech, but he knew that if he ever _had_, it would be quite similar to this.

Mufasa's voice was regal, rich, commanding, a warm baritone that bespoke wisdom and noble authority. He actually seemed quite gentlemanly, even downright amicable, and not in the mood for killing anyone.

Raising his great kingly head then, the red-maned lion then thoughtfully looked around at the gathering dark. "Do you two have any place to sleep tonight? This is certainly no place to settle down, I can tell you that."

"We kind of were meaning to sleep at the waterhole actually, Your Majesty," Jack politely told him.

"Well, I can think of something twice as good as that," Mufasa purred out. "How would you and Ann like to stay at Pride Rock for the night? In fact, you can stay for as long as you wish," the great cat offered.

Caught between deep appreciation at the gesture and apprehension at going into a lion's den, Jack wasn't sure what to say in response. Uncertainly, he looked into Ann's eyes, doubt crossing back and forth between them.

This could very well be some kind of setup-what Carl had done had sensitized his own receivers to that-, or things might suddenly degenerate when they met the rest of the pride, and they'd both end up dead as a result.

At the same time, he certainly didn't want to risk provoking Mufasa by refusing a royal invitation, and what place could possibly be safer out here than a cave filled with lions, the best guardians imaginable?

It was Ann who broke the silence first, turning from Jack to Mufasa and demurely telling the lion, "Thanks, we'd love to. That's extremely generous of you, Your Majesty."

With no other choice but to follow her lead, Jack Driscoll flashed the lion king a crooked smile before nodding and saying, "I'm happy to accept the privilege. Thanks a million."

_The die's been cast I guess. No turning back._

Tentatively then, Zazu, visibly afraid of punishment for failing his duties, addressed Mufasa, "Your Majesty, the formalities?"

"The formalities? Oh yes, thanks Zazu," Mufasa nodded.

Standing fully erect, head held high, the lion king pronounced, "I am King Mufasa, upholder of the Circle of Life, and ruler of the Mzima Pride. This is Zazu, my majordomo and adviser," the hornbill nodding in recognition, "and this is Prince Simba with his companion, Lady Nala," Simba giving a nervous, fearful smile as Nala gracefully nodded.

"Now say your names," Zazu coached.

"I'm Jack Driscoll," the playwright told Mufasa with a slow bow.

Taking that as her cue, Ann gracefully went to stand beside him, stating ethereally, "And I'm his…consort, Ann Darrow," giving a brief blush at her words and even curtseying as prudently as she could muster in a worn slip. Jack immediately looked away as his own cheeks became heated at the thought.

Helping them along, Zazu informed them, "Now do a full bow, then roll onto your back with limbs splayed out."

The bow he understood, but totally puzzled at the bizarre latter gesture, Jack wrinkled his forehead, saying, "Huh?"

"What's the reason for doing that?" Ann asked in bemusement.

"It's the leonine way of showing submission," Zazu explained.

Hesitantly, looking into Mufasa's imperial eyes, Ann knelt, and than bowed down before the red-maned lion, flipping onto her back in trepidation.

Jack should've been doing the same thing too, but reluctance and even a slight irrational defiance kept him standing up. He didn't feel comfortable bowing down to a beast and debasing himself in this manner.

Even more, the playwright felt like he'd be showing weakness in front of Ann by submitting, looking like a pushover and a coward in front of her instead of a true steadfast man.

Mufasa began to give a small growl of irritation, and Ann, still supine, sternly pleaded, "Jack, don't act the fool! Just bow down and it's done."

Feeling like a solider surrendering a weapon, Jack mouthed, "Okay Ann. All right," before reluctantly kneeling down, stretching his body forward and lowering his head as he touched his palms to the stone.

Then, just like he'd seen his cats do time and again in respectful recognition that he was the boss, Jack swallowed his masculine pride and rolled over onto his back, limbs sprawling as his emerald eyes met Mufasa's. He felt so horribly weak and vulnerable.

"You can get up now," Mufasa calmly told them.

Flipping over and pushing himself off the ground, Jack helped Ann up before giving a placating lopsided grin and nervously quipping, "Sorry Your Majesty. It's just a male type of thing."

"Perfectly understandable," Mufasa good-naturedly responded. "Now that that's all done, let's all get out of here and go back to Pride Rock."

"Yeah!" Simba enthusiastically said. "I'll introduce you guys to my Mom, and we'll play together, and-"

"But first," Mufasa snapped, turning to impale Simba with a suddenly steely, unbending gaze, "you are going to have some discipline and a talk with me about today."

Ears laid back, a cowed Simba paced up to his father, begging, "Dad, I…"

"You deliberately disobeyed me," Mufasa growled.

"Dad, I'm…I'm sorry," Simba weakly placated in remorse. Jack could relate all too well, feeling deep sympathy for the cub, but he knew better than to ever get involved in the disciplinary affairs of a father, especially a lion father to say the least.

As the lion king began to walk away, looking over his powerful shoulder, he told his son in stern reproach, "Let's go home."

Not wanted to say or do anything that might cause the again irked Mufasa to become irritated at them too, Jack waited with Ann until the shamefaced cubs were a few yards in front of them before falling into step himself.

As he did, clutching Ann's hand silently in his own, Jack heard Nala whisper to Simba, "I thought you were very brave."

In a similar hushed voice, Ann told him, "And I thought you were too Jack. But then, you always are."

Despite the ominous darkness around him, Jack felt he was flooded with a heavenly light.


	12. Under The African Stars

**Well hey, hey, hey, it's Fat Albert-whoops, I meant Nate The Ape, here with another chapter for your pleasure readers! I have to admit, this is a bit of a "filler" chapter, where nothing much goes on. Still, it gives good character development at least.**

**As an aside, I'm puzzled as to why I'm getting reviews from only two people. Is the story too "out there" ? Am I making this more into one big Trials of Life episode or a PBS documentary than a story? Is someone out of character? Is there not enough romance? Please, give me constructive crit so I can know what to change.**

**Once again, thanks to Marinawings and RebeccaAnn for your reviews!**

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_On these occasions we would find ourselves beside the three males, all of us walking abreast. We were amazed by their tolerance of us, as well as by their beauty and their noble air. There is something uniquely awe-inspiring about a male lion in his prime._Dereck Joubert, _The Lions of Savuti: Hunting With The Moon_. 1997. 

"_Lion: The fiercest and most magnanimous of the four footed beasts."_ _Samuel Johnston's Dictionary of the English Language. _1755.

_"All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by…"_ Harvey Cox, _The Seduction of the Spirit._ 1973.

It gave Ann a wash of pleasure to see Jack's tanned face light up in response to her commendation of his seemingly never-ending courage. The pleasure itself was added as icing to a profound relief, one that none of her fears in the graveyard had come true.

Relief that the hyenas hadn't harmed the cubs, for one, the dire possibility strong enough to make her return to this eerie, darkening landscape of gray rock and white bone they would all thankfully soon be leaving. Relief that the shaggy, malformed creatures hadn't harmed Jack as well, and what a fighter he'd proven to be! Relief that Mufasa, the awesome lion they were now trailing, even when he'd had every right, _more_ than every right, to act out on his instincts to protect his cubs, had been a true king and not laid a claw on her or on Jack.

"Thanks for the recognition darling. I do try my best, even if I'm still not completely used to it. Not to mention that sometimes I wonder what in the world I'm getting myself into," he told her with a small, delighted smile, keeping his voice low in the tense atmosphere.

"Well, I think you're doing a superb job of it myself," she gently affirmed.

"Just call me Jack Driscoll, Cretaceous Courageous," Jack playfully quipped with a grin.

Ann gently chuckled before suddenly, her nose caught an asphalt type of scent.

Thoughtfully, she asked Jack, "Do you smell that Jack?" even as she turned to the left.

"Smell what? I smell plenty of carrion around if that's what you mean. Sulfur too," he muttered in dry disgust.

"No, it's like roofing tar."

Jack sniffed again in the foggy air before thoughtfully saying, "You're right. In fact, I think that has to be either a tar or pitch seep."

Then, she saw inspiration, the rising of a brilliant idea, grow on Jack's lean aquiline features in the gathering dark as he looked in the seeps' direction, then at the bones littering the rocks around them, then at a vent spouting high-temperature gases even as the forming concept grew in her mind. It was vital and brilliant all at once.

"A torch, right?" Ann neutrally stated.

"An excellent deduction Miss Darrow," Jack approvingly affirmed. "Now let's see if His Majesty will allow us to make and take one."

"I sure hope so," Ann intoned in a voice of tentative expectation. Already, she was getting goosebumps in her thin slip as the mercury began to slip downwards with the sun.

Jack then spoke up, getting the attention of the lion king twenty yards in front of them with a wary, "King Mufasa? Your Majesty?"

At the sound, Mufasa whipped his great blocky head around and stopped to look at them. For an instant, he was commandingly terrifying, black lips compressed and mouth corners drawn back, ears flattened and eyes piercing, all proclaiming that this was one peeved male lion. The sight made Ann's heart jump into her throat, and both the actress and writer froze, muscles tense.

But a second later, the lion's expression softened, and he said in his rich baritone, "Yes Jack, what is it?"

"Anything either of you need?" Zazu helpfully volunteered. "Oh, it's time for a bathroom break, isn't it? Simba, Nala, they say humans are shy creatures, so look away." He reminded her so much of a feathered Preston.

"No, no, it's not exactly that," Jack hurriedly corrected, giving a faint smile as he shook his head and Ann felt her own mouth corners draw upward in amusement. It was added to by the memory of how her mother had just had such a knack for anticipating these requests from Ann and her sisters, and Lord knew that she'd sure heard them often.

"What we'd like is if we could make ourselves a torch and bring it along."

"I'm sorry, but I've never heard of such a thing before," Mufasa said in puzzlement.

"A torch is how we transport fire," Ann elaborated.

"Fire? Why would you want to have anything to do with fire?" the lion asked in real shock, eyes widening. "Surely you must know that fire burns and hurts those who touch it. It kills and destroys even as it cleanses and encourages new growth."

"We know," Jack calmly stated, "but we're special in that as humans, we can control it and even make fire work for us. In fact, we really can't survive without it around to keep us warm and protect ourselves, since we don't have any fur or fangs like you do."

"I know I'll be needing it soon," Ann frankly added, feeling her body beginning to shiver.

For a few weighted moments, Mufasa regarded them with his amber eyes, Ann imploring him with her own blue ones. Last time she'd slept the night away, Kong's fur and body heat had provided a surprisingly effective, if bizarre, warm mattress and blanket all in one.

But out here her bed would most likely be either cold rock or dirt, and Ann wasn't willing to gamble that the lions would just let her flop down on or beside them right away. Jack, she knew, would give her all the clothing that he prudently could and offer his own body heat as he laid beside hers-hell, after what he'd done already, Jack would probably cut his own chest open if she needed warmth that badly, as sickeningly lurid and appalling as the images were to her. They couldn't escape being chilled or even live long though, without a fire, or at least she couldn't.

Would the lion show inadvertent cruelty or accepting kindness? Ann felt like she was perched on a knife's edge.

Casually, with a hint of wariness in his own regal voice now, Mufasa told them, "Fire is a part of the balance here in the Pridelands. It gets rid of ticks and weeds, and then leaves excellent grazing in its wake. But there is a season for it, like with everything, and I don't want to see a blaze come before its time."

"Please!" cried Ann in horror, clasping her hands. "We _will_ be careful, you have our word!"

Jack was about to protest as well, but Mufasa silenced him with a paw gesture, saying, "I'm not finished yet. If you two were willing to put your lives on the line to save my son and his friend, then that means you are clearly trustworthy indeed, trustworthy enough to be allowed to possess fire," finishing with a smile.

Relief and gratitude poured through Ann's body as her body pleasantly slumped. Feeling like she could hug Mufasa, she told him, "Thank you so much Your Majesty. You don't know how important this is to us."

Nodding to second the motion, Jack added himself, "Thanks. You won't be sorry, we promise."

"No need for doing that," Mufasa matter-of-factly replied. "Just make your torch and then come along."

An already broken bone, four minutes of holding the snapped end in the pitch seep, and a cautious prod into the vent was all it took for her paramour to have a blazing torch clutched in his broad right hand-she tried her best not to think of her _other_ recent memory of torches, Ann reminding herself that this one meant life and protection, not the opposite. The gathered lions gave it an even stronger caveman-type aura, and Ann felt a weird urge to giggle at it all as Jack then picked up another bone to serve as a third club if needed, tucking it in his armpit.

Using yet another slang term that was totally lost on her and Jack, although she guessed it must mean neat or amazing, Simba commented, "Wow! That is so cool how you did that! Can you teach me sometime Jack?" the cub excitedly requested.

"Develop a pair of opposable thumbs, and I'll be happy to," Jack playfully, lopsidedly grinned, as Zazu and Mufasa both laughed knowingly.

"Well, well, you humans truly _can_ make and master fire," an impressed Zazu declared, wings akimbo in a surreally humanlike posture. "And no wonder some call you the Firehands!"

"Firehands," Ann said with interest. "That actually sounds like a rather cute term, doesn't it Jack?" turning in his direction.

"Indeed it does," he agreed, charmed. "Looks like Mufasa isn't waiting though," he added, gesturing with a flick of his expressive left hand in the strolling cat's direction. Ann fell back into place at Jack's side, and they silently followed His Royal Highness.

Although the lion hadn't said anything to directly imply it, Ann had the vague, ringing feeling that they'd tried Mufasa's patience with their request to bring fire, in addition to the anger he was already feeling towards Simba about his little shenanigan.

Therefore, it was in silence that Ann expressed her gratefulness to see the elephant graveyard's boundary up ahead, the threshold between an earthly limbo and a wondrous, living paradise. Wordlessly, she and Jack glanced into each other's eyes in the torch's flickering orange firelight, and then Ann came out first, hooking her hands onto the bank's lip and heaving her slim body out. Turning, she reached for the torch Jack proffered, and wrapped her hand around the pitted bone at the base as she stood up.

Using a bone for a torch. It never would've occurred to her. Perhaps they could also collect more bones later and make them into weapons like darts, digging tools, and crude utensils.

Heaving himself up in turn, lips compressed against the pain of his shoulder wound as Ann bent to take one of his hands, Jack stood erect on the grass, inhaling the blue-gray air before taking the torch back from her. He squeezed her hand lightly in way of appreciation, and then they continued on together in the lion's wake, thankful to be getting out of that valley of toxic-looking gas and death.

* * *

The torch's yellow-orange flame was radiantly, gloriously bright. But it couldn't compare to the spectacular, marvelous beauty of the African sunset off to Ann's left, coloring the horizon lavender and pumpkin orange and carmine and indigo and rose and goldenrod and tangerine, a phoenix perishing in a flamboyant blaze of hues to be reborn again the next morning. 

It was every bit as enchantingly captivating as the sunset she'd watched with the giant ape on the outcrop that served as his lair. She knew he would just love to be here, seeing this right now.

"Beautiful," she appreciatively fluted out to herself.

"And how," a marveling Jack agreed, nodding his head while inadvertently bringing Ann out of her little reverie.

Pointedly, Ann raised a finger to her velvet lips, and then lightly poked it in Mufasa's direction. Jack immediately understood, giving her a brief, lackluster smile in apology. Since they'd left the graveyard, it had sure seemed to Ann like the lion king had been brooding, scowling almost as he walked along, turning what Simba had done and what his punishment would be over and over in his huge regal head.

The tension between him and the cubs could be felt vibrating in the cooling air, and now both Ann and Jack were walking even further back then the shamed Simba and Nala were.

Mufasa wasn't miffed at them personally, it was true, and a part of Ann admonished that she was being unreasonably apprehensive. Still, you definitely didn't want to be only 5-10 feet from an irritated male lion when he impulsively decided that he just _had_ to lash out at something, and said in his own mind, "Come to think of it…_You'll do nicely!_"

Although their sizes couldn't even begin to compare, it was wonderfully uncanny how much Mufasa already reminded her of Kong, in so many ways. The great lion was strong, regal, magnificent, intimidating, beautiful and fierce all at once. He was _far_ more intelligent then she could've conceived, had immense power and projected authority, one hell of an air-shaking, commanding roar, a sense of humor, and protected his own with a determined, valiant savagery.

And in the face of everything logical, he'd spared both their lives and made her and Jack his friends.

Yes, she was really growing to like him. And in all honesty, she was very glad to have his leonine presence here as protection. It certainly wasn't that she thought Jack was pathetic or weak-after what he'd done all for her on the island, how could she ever?-but there was only so much he as a mere human could take on and know how to deal with.

A male lion though…Oh, a mature male lion could take on and know how to contend with anything out here. Forget about what the runaway slaves would cheer when they reached the Canadian border, she and Jack were _truly_ under the protection of the Lion's Paw!

_Goodness knows that we sure do look the part though_, Ann thought in mildly embarrassed amusement, briefly looking at her tattered slip and crude reed slip-ons.

She could tell from Jack's face that he was hesitant for his part, trusting Mufasa, yet also filled with a real uncertainty about what tonight would hold for the two of them, something like on the longboat ride to the island. He was wondering if he'd have to use the torch for purposes other than illumination and warmth.

Ann decided to do the reassuring herself for once, let him know that they'd hit a real jackpot, her mouth curving upward at the amusing play on words. She slowed to a stop then, letting the lions continue on for a bit. Immediately, Jack halted in his tracks, turning to look at Ann with concern in his green eyes as he trotted back through the red oat grass to her.

"Are you alright Ann?" he softly whispered when he reached her, the firelight playing orange over his features. "You weren't just snakeb-"

"Peachy keen," she told him gently, starting to walk again at his left. "I just want to talk to you at a distance where Mufasa won't hear us."

"What do you want to talk about? Anything eating you?" he asked as he touched her side, giving a muffled chuckle at his involuntary pun.

"No, I'm fine Jack. It's just that I can see something's troubling _you_. It's about the lions, isn't it?" she said perceptively.

"Me?" Jack responded with playful shock. "Ann darling, after facing dinosaurs and a pit of horrors, you think I'd be worried about mere _lions_?" giving her a half grin as the firelight shone off his marble teeth.

Adopting a more serious tone, he softly confided, "Actually, yes, I am. Don't misunderstand me Ann, I trust Mufasa, and I know we'd already both be dead if he meant to kill us, but we don't know how the other lions will react when we meet them, and that frightens me."

"Well, we both knew deep down that we'd stumble into the lions sooner or later Jack, no matter how cautious and careful we were. Admit it," Ann told him matter-of-factly.

"Yeah," Jack sighed. "It just comes with the territory and was inevitable out here, I guess."

"And if anything, this was probably the best possible circumstance we could've met the lions under Jack," she pointed out.

Giving her a puzzled sideways look, Jack replied, "For once I'm afraid I don't follow you. I certainly didn't want to have cubs in the equation," looking at Simba and Nala's slinking forms.

"Remember how you said yourself earlier, before we came to the waterhole, that helping an animal would be the best thing we could do for ourselves out here?"

Realization of their incredible luck dawned on Jack's face, and with heartened appreciation, he said, "Yeah, I sure do. The enemy of my enemy really _is_ my friend after all, and we've sure struck gold when it came to using that method to make friends, haven't we?" he contemplated with a broad grin of pleasure.

"You absolutely bet we have," Ann responded. "And thankfully managed to save the cubs' lives after all."

"It's just like the story of Joseph, isn't it?" Jack said with a reflective playfulness. "Do something that benefits the king, and then it benefits you in spades."

"And how," Ann impishly agreed, playfully throwing his words from before back at him. They chuckled together, then, conscious of the noise they were making in the charged atmosphere, instantly, sheepishly fell silent.

At that moment, Mufasa then stopped.

_Oh Jesus, he heard us and now he's angry,_ Ann thought.

"Don't worry, I'll take the blame," Jack nobly comforted her as they began to walk back up.

With his commanding tone, Mufasa's voice could be heard quite clearly in the crisp evening air.

"Zazu?" he authoritively snapped. It was not a request.

Fearful trepidation written all over his features, the hornbill flew over and landed in front of his king, asking "Yes sire?" in a thin, cringing voice.

Nodding his grave maned head in their direction, Mufasa told Zazu with unbending, punctual coolness, "Take Nala home. Jack and Ann too, and you're responsible for getting them introduced. I've got to teach my son a lesson."

Through her surprised shock and worry that the lion king would _not_ be accompanying them back to Pride Rock like she'd assumed, it bludgeoned Ann's heart and moved her sympathy to see how Simba laid back his ears and cringed wide-eyed in the grass.

Relief at not being chewed out or chewed on evident in his expression, Zazu flew over back to her, Jack, and the cubs with a business-type yet regretful attitude.

"Come Nala. You too Jack and Ann," he added, looking up at them. Turning to the prince, the hornbill put his wings on the despondent cub's shoulders, gave a heavy, "I know what you're going through" sigh, and then a commiserating pat as he said, "Simba…Good luck."

_You'll need it_, Ann resignedly thought as she turned in obedience. Despite the fact that Ann Darrow was an independent woman, one who knew how to survive and speak for herself quite well, she also knew that there were times where the prudent thing to do was just follow orders. This was obviously one of them.

Besides, although he'd opened his mouth to give some sort of protest, Jack had thought better of it and dried up. If he thought that zipping it and following Zazu was the sensible thing to do, then she'd follow Jack's lead too.

Before she did though, she looked with a mutual understanding at Simba's forlorn form, and requested in a soft plea to Mufasa, "Don't be too hard on the little fella."

Jack's face flushed in a mixture of pure shock and embarrassment at her presumptuous statement before he hurriedly tugged at her slim arm to hurry her along. As they got moving, Ann looked over her shoulder again at Mufasa, now disappearing from sight as the stars appeared in the blue-black dome over their heads. Now she was really thankful that they had torchlight to see by.

Ann didn't like it at all though, that Mufasa's absence meant they would be basically meeting the pride by themselves, and she gripped Jack's big left hand with her slender one for badly needed comfort. If the other lions either jumped to a faulty conclusion, or worse, decided that these human beings weren't welcome here and got rather territorial, the chances were good that she and Jack would come to grief in Pride Rock's shadow.

Voicing her concern, Ann softly asked, "Zazu?"

Looking over his shoulder, the hornbill asked, "Yes madam?" as he glided in beside her.

Taking a breath, Ann asked him, "Will we be safe when we arrive?"

"Of course," Zazu said. "No hyena would ever dare to approach Pride Rock."

"Actually, she means if the other lions there will try to harm us," Jack specified on her behalf. "That's something I'm also pretty damn worried about myself for the record."

"Oh, I see," Zazu said with mild chagrin. Getting to the more pressing topic, the hornbill soothingly stated, "You can put your minds at ease about that right now Mister Driscoll and Miss Darrow. The very fact that I am even with the two of you gives you safe passage."

"Can we be sure about that?" Ann said doubtfully.

"Yes you can, my dear Miss Darrow," Zazu politely assured. "As King Mufasa's majordomo and herald, if _I_ approve of you and feel that you can be trusted, then his Highness does as well. Besides, royal protocol states that if anyone does us a good turn, then we are obliged to cordially repay that favor, which naturally entails not eating them for one thing," the hornbill informed them with a good-humored smile.

"But what if something goes wrong anyway and even just one of the lions acts territorial, or even just gets irritated at us?" Jack grimly asked.

Giving a sigh, Zazu solemnly told him, "While it's prudent of you to respect their power, and all cats _can_ certainly have volatile tempers at times, the Mzima Pride has always been quite tolerant of strangers in my experience. And even if one didn't take kindly to you, as the king's envoy I would happily put myself between them and you after what you've both done today. There is nothing to worry yourselves about."

Heartened by his words, Ann decided the hornbill was speaking the honest truth and relaxed, feeling her feet pleasurably sink into feathers each time she stepped on the silvered star grass. Jack apparently was reassured as well, for she felt a similar change in his demeanor.

It was a gorgeous panorama around them, and Ann just walked with Jack beside her for a bit, silently enjoying the dreamlike view. About a third of the way from where they'd left the lion king and prince, Ann heard a shamed Nala begin to softly sob.

Her attention diverted, Ann tenderly asked, "Hey, what's wrong Nala?"

"I feel so horrible," Nala choked out in remorse. "I went with Simba because I thought the elephant graveyard would be a cool place to go see. We didn't know that it would be dangerous and hyenas would try to eat us!"

"It's okay Nala," Ann comforted. "You couldn't have possibly known."

"Everyone makes mistakes," assured Jack. "At least you're willing to admit yours."

"My mom's going to be so mad when she finds out. She'll spank me," Nala fearfully quivered.

"Well, just remember that it'll be over and done with before you know it," Zazu said to give her courage.

"And that's just part of how you learn as you grow up," Jack added. "Besides, there's not a kid in this world who listens, or who _should_ listen, to their parents all the time. Believe me, I should know," he emphasized with a lopsided grin.

"And I should know too," Ann added knowingly.

"I still feel awful though. I did such a bad thing," Nala sniffed in sorrow.

"As I said, at least you appreciate that what you did was bad," Jack comforted her. "And for what it's worth, just know that if we weren't there, there could've been a far worse outcome than merely being disciplined by your mother when we get back."

"I agree with that," Zazu grimly said with a shudder.

"She'll sure be very happy to see that you're okay, just like my mother was whenever she thought I was in trouble," Ann continued.

This touched Nala's interest. "You got in trouble as a kid too?" she said, looking up in amazement as they walked.

With a smile that was not exactly pride, Ann sheepishly responded, "Yes. And quite a bit of it in fact. So it's not just you who's misbehaved."

Jack's glittering green hooded eyes widened in mock surprise, and he let go of her hand to put it on his hip, playfully saying, "_You_ engaged in unruly behavior as a girl Ann? No, I don't believe my angel could be capable of doing such things for a moment. Please say it isn't so!"

"Sorry to tell you this Jack, but it _is_ so, and I enjoyed it," Ann shot back playfully with a smirk, causing him to give one of his own.

Adopting his role again, Jack shook his head in staged resignation and disappointment, dolefully lamenting, "I suppose I should've realized that even you weren't unsullied from the start. After all, as the nursery rhyme goes, 'There was a little girl/ who had a little curl/ right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good/ she was very, very good/ but when she was bad/-'"

"She was quite horrid," Ann finished, and they both broke out into wild laughter.

"To be serious though, I admit going and doing some truly rascally things as a younger lady," Ann said with a blush.

"Such as?" Jack urged, eyes shining with mischief.

"Goodness, there are so many! I would jump off the bed and try to fly for one thing, no matter how often Mother told me that it upset the people below us," she laughed. "And then there was a time when right before we were all going to church, I was wearing a cute little frilly gold dress, and then got my hands on some chocolate frosted cupcakes!" she giggled. "It was not pretty."

Jack laughed loudly at the image, teeth stained orange in the firelight before he said, "You know, since my mother Esther is a Romanian Jew and Jason is Catholic, they had an agreement between themselves to expose me to both religions, which meant that I went to both churches and synagogues as a boy. But whatever the building, I remember that too often I'd try to jump and splash in every puddle while wearing my best pants and shoes on the way there," crescent dimples furrowing his cheeks as he laughed.

Taking up her end, Ann nostalgically recollected, "And then there was a time when my middle sister Alice and I got into a fight over some foolish thing, and well, I accidentally tore a chunk of her hair out," she admitted, feeling her cheeks heat up as she looked at the grass in embarrassment.

"That's nothing to what I did sometimes to my two younger brothers," Jack assured her. "Us Driscoll men have prominent noses after all," he quipped as he pointed to that feature, "so that unfortunately puts it in a perfect position to be bloodied. In addition, I also liked to fight dirty and bite for good measure."

"I do that too sometimes. A lot," Nala admitted.

"Well you're a lion Nala. You're supposed to nip and bite in play," Jack shrugged. "But getting back to the subject, we loved to make play forts out of the furniture together too," he recollected, "and that just irked my parents to no end."

"What's furniture?" Nala asked.

"They're objects made out of wood or metal that we sit on, sleep on, or eat off of mostly," Jack explained. "They're definitely not for playing with though," he grinned.

Giving a high-pitched laugh, Ann then said, "Well, when I was six years old at Christmas time, I tried to see if I could reach this pretty purple ornament on the tree. And I knocked it over with a huge crash instead," she defeatedly smirked with a shrug.

"Oh good Christ, I would've loved to have seen that!" Jack laughed wildly. "As for me, as mortifying as it is now, when I was…I…well…at the playground…" He turned away sheepishly, refusing to say more.

Filled with a fevered curiosity, Ann prodded, "What did you do Jack? Tell me!"

Giving a sigh, Jack weakly shrugged and admitted, "I peed off the monkey bars."

Ann felt her jaw drop in pure shock. She laughed in disbelief, saying, "You did something like that Jack? You, famous playwright Jack Driscoll, Mr. sophisticated and elegant, _urinated_ off the monkey bars as a boy!"

"Sad, isn't it?" her blushing man said. "Only my parents and siblings know, so please don't you dare tell anyone else. Christ knows Carl would blab it to the world if he found out. Most likely after having a drink or six," he added.

"Don't worry I won't. Trust me," an amazed Ann assured.

"See Nala?" Zazu told her. "We've all gotten in trouble as children, and it helps you to ultimately become wiser in the future."

As Ann nodded to back the hornbill's point up, Jack gave a slow, wistful smile, his eyes distant.

"You remind me a bit of someone I once knew Zazu," Jack told him softly.

Beating a curious Ann to the punch, Zazu said with interest, "Really? Who was he? Or she," he added.

"His name was Bert Draper, but we all called him Lumpy, because of his dishes. He had a British accent, just like you," Jack recalled with another smile that was part nostalgic humor, part sadness.

It just made Ann feel guilty, guilty that both the cook's savage death and the nightmare-inducing horror of it that would scar Jack for the rest of his life was on her account.

Tenderly, she stroked Jack's spine, feeling his tightening back muscles. But if Jack felt like letting some of it out for his own sake, Ann wasn't going to prevent him for a minute.

Blissfully oblivious to the knowledge, Zazu laughed with pleasure. "So he spoke like me too, ah? You said he prepared food for you. Were his dishes any good?"

"Sorry to say it, but for the most part they were only tolerable. Both his meals and speech were rather coarse," Jack admitted with a candid, but good-natured shrug.

"I'll second that," Ann added. The poor man…

Thoughtfully, Zazu looked around, questioning, "If you knew this Lumpy and he made the meals, why isn't he still with you then?"

At that, Jack shuddered, lightly licking his lips and looking at the grass. Ann silently embraced Jack around his back for comfort before deciding to spare him from giving the answer and seeing the memories anew.

"He's dead now," Ann told Zazu with a neutral softness.

Zazu's face fell. "Oh. I'm terribly sorry to hear that Madam."

"How did he die?" Nala innocently inquired.

Like Ann, Zazu saw Jack's throat muscles and teeth softly clench, and a fleeting, but still noticeable, strained look appear in his green eyes. "Nala, this really isn't the time," the hornbill flatly told the lion cub.

"No, it's okay," Jack dismissed. "All you need to know is that-other animals-killed him." He gave a trembling sigh, and left the subject at that.

"I'll tell you myself later Nala, okay?" Ann secretly volunteered. And it was all her fault.

Her self-pity was swept away then when Jack suddenly stopped dead beside a spreading wild olive.

"And speaking of other animals…" he trailed off in awestruck wonder and nervousness.

Following his gaze as it swept upward, Ann saw with a shock that they'd come right to the base of Pride Rock. The great stone giant was impossibly massive, dark and intimidating against the star-spangled sky, having a timeless permanence and authority to it.

Ann had been impressed enough to see the granite monolith from a fair distance by day. But now, looming up in the dark only a few hundred yards away, the impression it so forcefully made was multiplied by at least ten. She didn't know whether it "wanted" to nobly welcome her and Jack, or strike them down.

"Here we find ourselves at the Rock of Ages," Jack breathed out.

"Absolutely," Ann nodded, only distantly aware that she was even doing it.

At last, they'd arrived at their destination, and their destiny.

* * *

**Next up: Meeting the pride!**


	13. A Majestic Meeting

Well, at long last, we have a new chapter up for a new month!! I also sheepishly have to take the time here to reveal that I've gotten to a point in this fic where the next two, three chapters are kind of hazy, half-baked as to subject and structure. In other words, I probably won't have any idea what the hell I'm writing about and it'll show. So do bear with me readers.

In regards to the local African flavor, the Swahili word kike is pronounced _key-kay_, not like the anti-Semetic slur! Ngai is the Maasai and Kikuyu word for God.

As before, a warm thanks to my reviewers!! You know full well who you are. :) This chapter has been slightly revised because I accidently left something out.

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_Come in between the lions/ come in between the lions/ come in between the llliiiooonnnsss!!!_ Ending of the theme song for the PBS kid's series _Between The Lions._

_The lion may lay down with the calf, but the calf won't get much sleep. _Woody Allen, 1976.

The crude torch Jack clutched in his hand threw out orange and yellow shafts of light from its flame to pour over the base of Pride Rock, the top two-thirds still blue-black against the stars. He noted that the orchestra of cicadas and grasshoppers he'd been hearing all day had stopped, and the sounds of the African night had yet to get off the ground.

It gave a hushed quality to the scene, the granite palace before them seeming like something ageless. The only moving creatures around, pouring out into the sky like pieces of burnt newspaper, were streams of horseshoe, free-tailed, flat-headed, mouse-tailed, and Egyptian fruit bats exiting from the caves and crevices.

"Makes quite an impression, doesn't it?" Zazu said with knowing pride from a branch. "But there will be plenty of time later to enjoy taking the view. Come this way now and introduce yourselves to the pride," the hornbill cheerily requested, starting to continue on. Nala reluctantly followed him, eyes downcast with resigned hesitation.

Ann slowly turned and fixed his eyes expectantly with her own, and Jack knew that she was again looking to him for what course of action they'd be taking. Suddenly Jack had the chilling feeling that he was about to do something profoundly stupid, that following Zazu into the lion's den would be committing a murder/suicide.

Maybe he was being unreasonably paranoid, but he'd almost lost Ann too many times over the past three days to feel like taking even the slimmest risk with her life. If an outside threat that was beyond Jack's control popped up, or Ann herself was determined to dive into a risky escapade like with the hyenas, then that couldn't really be helped, and the only thing the writer could do was to simply dance along. Being _forced_ to dance with the devil though, and _choosing_ to dance of your own free will are still two very different things however, and Jack would be damned if he'd lead Ann to slaughter by his own volition.

"We're staying right out here," Jack told Zazu in an even, yet firm tone.

Halting in his tracks, the hornbill looked over his shoulder with a stunned expression at them, and then landed again at edge of the circle of firelight.

"Why ever would you want to?" Zazu enquired. "It isn't every day you get the supreme honor of being invited to the royal residence!!"

"I know, and we deeply appreciate that. It's only that we don't want to be dinner guests in more ways than one," Jack responded with pointed dryness. "If you catch my meaning."

"Jack, I think it'll be okay-" Ann began.

"Maybe you're right Ann, but we're not going to be walking up to strange lions unless I know you have a place to escape to. Like this tree," Jack indicated.

Slapping a wing over his face and running it down his bill, Zazu gave a deep sandpapery sigh of exasperation, muttering "He is worse than a gazelle buck…" before telling them, "Mister Driscoll, please let me inform you of something. Do you know how many antelope, zebra, and other prey animals come to and even _stay_ at Pride Rock every single month? Dozens. Now do you know how many of those visitors are devoured?" he firmly asked.

"None," Ann perceptively said before Jack could.

"Exactly," Zazu said. "Not one. To repeat Mister Driscoll, I am your safe passage and both you and Ann as your kike have diplomatic immunity."

Thrown by the strange term, Jack asked in puzzlement, "I'm sorry, but what does kike mean? It'd better not be an insult," he sternly told the hornbill.

"Not at all," Zazu assured, crossing his wings and flicking them apart.

"It's only the word for female, like what I am," Nala knowledgeably said.

At that, Ann softly laughed, saying, "That's quite interesting. I prefer being known as lady, dame, or broad myself though," she smiled while putting an elbow on Jack's shoulder.

Her touch made Jack all the more protective, and his fingers lingered on Ann's back before he told Zazu, "Sorry bird buddy, but if the lions want to meet us, it's going to be out here where we can run or better yet climb away."

Zazu looked at him with an expression on his face like he wanted to bonk his feathered head on the ground repeatedly. "Now you're just being obstinate. You even have fire to protect yourself with, but you still won't come with us," the hornbill said, tiredly shaking his head.

"But we don't have the numbers, teeth, or claws," Jack grimly stated.

"My mom's very nice. She'd never hurt anybody," Nala placated.

"I think he's made up his mind Nala," Zazu accepted, making a small part of Jack kick himself for how unreasonably, stubbornly paranoid he was being. Fixing the writer's eyes again, Zazu told him in a mix of irritation and understanding, "Fine. If you don't want to come to the pride, they'll need to come out to you then," before flying back up to be absorbed into the granite hulk with Nala.

"Are you sure that was a wise thing to do Jack?" Ann cautiously asked from behind him. "You might've gone and deeply offended them now," she lightly rebuked.

"I know. I probably just grabbed a whole handful of wooden nickels just now," Jack said with sheepish uncertainty. "But I'd much rather see the lions be a little insulted then see their fangs digging into your flesh."

* * *

Dark against the navy-blue night sky, Zazu glided into the mouth of the sleeping cave with Nala following behind, ears pasted against her head.

"Nala!!" Sarafina shouted in joyous relief, leaping up and running over to gratefully head-butt her daughter in the leonine form of affection. Happiness gave way to a stonier visage then, as the lioness growled, "Now where in the name of the Greatest Kings were you all this time missy?! You told me that you were just exploring the waterhole!"

"And where's Simba?" Sarabi demanded of Zazu, trying to keep her regal composure even as her concern mounted by leaps and bounds.

Snapping to attention, her majordomo assured her, "Not to worry my queen. Simba is quite safe with Mufasa. And he's giving the prince a little disciplinary talk about the feckless little adventure that Nala joined him on," Zazu added with pointed dryness as he raised an eyebrow at the cub in question.

Not able to hold her shame in anymore, Nala submissively rolled onto her back, giving mewing sobs as she squeaked, "We're so sorry Mom! I thought an elephant graveyard would be the coolest thing to see in the whole wide world, and Simba made it sound so exciting too!"

Both lioness mothers, knowing full well that the place was crawling with hyenas, sucked in air, eyes wide and jaws slack in disbelief.

"You didn't go…You did!," Sarafina lightly snapped at her daughter.

"Yes, pl…pl…please forgive me Mom!" Nala begged.

"Of course I do, but you know what this means, don't you Nala?" Sarafina commandingly asked. "To the back of the cave young lady. Chest down, butt up. Now!"

Ignoring Nala's punishment, Sarabi's face fell as she looked at Zazu's own eyes and sensed what he didn't want to say next. "Oh Good Ngai, the hyenas went after them, didn't they? I can smell that Nala's been chased too," the lion queen stated in a distant, weak croak of panic.

"Correct, and I was just as scared as you are Your Highness," Zazu affirmed thinly. "If it hadn't been for Mufasa's arrival, and the very timely appearance of two quite unlikely heroes, the worst probably would've happened."

"Someone _else _besides Mufasa helped to save them?" Sarabi voiced incredulously. "But what sane creatures would ever go in there by their own choice? Not to discount how grateful I am to them," she added.

Shifting from foot to foot and looking at the ground in uncertainty, the red-billed hornbill gave a weak smile before saying, "First, know that I am not lying when I say this my queen. It is the solemn truth, as crazy as it may sound. Your son and the princess were rescued by a mated pair of humans."

Every single lioness, including Sarafina, who had been explaining to Nala after her spanking about how bad actions had bad consequences, whipped their heads around and fairly shouted, "**WHAT**!"

Sarabi couldn't have been more astounded to hear that these creatures of rumor not only existed, but also had valiantly saved her cub on top of that. Zazu might as well have told a human mother that her son had been delivered from death by a griffin or the Loch Ness Monster.

"So there are such things," Masega, another lioness, said in awe. "Even the oldest elephant matriarchs say that they haven't seen humans in the Pridelands for several of our generations."

"That's impossible," Sarabi found herself breathing out.

"Impossible yes, but it's still true and they're quite real," Zazu maintained. "I couldn't believe my eyes either, but the rumors are spot on."

"How big are they? I've heard that they're very tall," Sarabi's sister, Ndugu asked.

"The male one of the two, whose name is Jack, is the bigger, about as tall as an eland bull when he's standing up," Zazu stated. "As for weight, I'd say he's probably as heavy as an unusually large impala stag. But what am I standing here babbling for when you can go see them for yourselves!!" the majordomo cheerfully dismissed.

"They're here?!!" Sarabi cried. "And you didn't even have the decency to invite them inside Zazu?" she chided. "You should know far better tha-"

"I know Your Highness, I _know_," Zazu placated, holding his wings out in front of him. "I tried to bring them in, but Jack wouldn't come or let his female, Ann, go up here either."

"Why wouldn't he want to?" Sarabi pondered aloud. Then the answer hit her. "He's scared that we'll attack or eat them, isn't he," the lioness neutrally stated.

"Correct, no matter how much I assured him that he would be safe," Zazu sighed. "Still, he has many superficial wounds on his body and mentioned one of his companions recently being killed before him, so the poor soul likely has had a hard time of it and his guard is higher up than it normally would be as a result."

Sarabi sighed wearily. This would call for some careful diplomacy, and then who had any idea what spooked or angered a human? But she'd kindly coaxed plenty of timid or even downright terrified visitors to come into her presence during her time as queen so far, from hares to geckos, and decided to apply the same tactics with the pair.

"All right," she pronounced. "If they're too apprehensive to come and meet us, I'll go out to greet them myself. Sarafina, please come along with me."

"May I come along too Queen Sarabi?" an elderly lioness respectfully requested. "I probably have heard as much about humans and their ways as anyone here after all, and can be of help," she pointed out.

"Your offer is generous Chakavu, but no. Three of us would be too many and only scare the humans, especially if they're already on edge. Besides, it would be best if only the mothers of the cubs they saved met them first," Sarabi reasoned.

"As you wish it Sarabi," Chakavu conceded.

Dismissing that topic, Sarabi asked before she left, "Are they far from here Zazu?"

"Not at all, and you'll definitely see them just fine, since the male holds fire," Zazu told her. "The humans also have a very-distinctive-smell to them," the hornbill added dryly.

Sarabi nodded, and at that the two lioness mothers trotted out of the sleeping cave together, and gracefully leapt down the natural stone ramp to the ground.

As Zazu had said, it didn't take very long at all to pinpoint the whereabouts of the pair, unexpectedly and to Sarabi's wonder, illuminated by honest-to-Ngai flames burning like a small sun from the top of a bone torch the human male Jack held in his right hand. Behind him, streaks of light and shadow flashing over her smooth pale face, his kike stared with great blue eyes from her perch several feet above in the wild olive's crotch.

On seeing the lioness pair, Jack instantly stood erect, tensed and ready to defend Ann like a true pride male would, warily holding out his fire and locking eyes with both the lions even as he softly told her something. They'd have to take this slowly, and Sarabi started to utter soft puffing sounds, the lion way of showing friendliness and saying "I come in peace."

* * *

"Ann," Jack quietly told her, not taking his eyes off both lionesses as they stopped at the edge of the firelight, producing soft, staccato, breathy calls, "if they charge me, climb right to the highest branches that can support you. And for God's sake, don't you dare look at what's going on below if I can't get up too." Could lions even climb trees, he wondered? He sure hoped not.

The lions weren't stalking towards him, growling, or showing any outright aggressive behavior towards the writer to be frank, but Jack couldn't also just ignore the deep instincts he felt pressing against his belly either, and knew as a former cat owner to always expect the unexpected with felines.

"Well, we'll just have to see what move they want to make first Jack," Ann breathed out simply. "And don't do anything foolish," she told him unnecessarily.

He nodded in slow understanding without turning his head, and one of the lionesses spoke then.

"Salutations and good evening humans," the darker lioness said in greeting. Her voice was dignified and almost sultry, infused with a quiet wisdom that reflected her aristocratic demeanor. "I am Sarabi, queen of the Mzima Pride, and Simba's mother."

"And I'm Sarafina, Nala's mother," the second lioness said in a higher-pitched, almost cheery tone.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," Jack responded with wary politeness, giving the cats a sidelong look of uncertainty.

"May we come forward so we can get to know the two of you better?" Sarabi cordially enquired. She and Sarafina seemed nice enough, and part of Jack Driscoll wanted to say yes, but he froze with hesitation at the idea. This could turn out splendidly, or it also could end up being a fatal mistake. He looked from the big cats to Ann, and from Ann to the lions again, clenching his jaw very lightly in indecision.

In the first week or so after Carl, Mr. Unscrupulous, had basically kidnapped him, one of the things the playwright had missed most acutely was not having a single thing to read. Yes, it was extremely odd that he'd want to go on a literary adventure at the same time Jack was _living_ one, but he'd pined for the pleasures of the printed word all the same.

Englehorn had a decent personal library in his quarters however, and despite the feelings of cautious, respectful awe the captain's presence had always generated in Jack during those first weeks, he'd drawn up his courage one day and asked Hayes if the first mate could see if his captain would allow the writer to read some of his books.

To Jack's relief and thankful surprise, Englehorn hadn't become terse or told him no, but for a wonder had given him the go-ahead. Naturally enough, a significant number of those books had dealt with wild animals and trapping or hunting the beasts. An image from one of those books, Oskar Schilling's 1906 _With Flashlight and Rifle_, snapped up onto his mental stage, chilling and stark.

Taken with a tripwire activated flash camera, the light had caught a lioness in the act of dispatching a bull tied out as bait, restraining the shoulders with her weight and one foreleg, forcing the horned head down with the other one-and killing the bovine with a crunching bite to the back of the neck.

But the lionesses wouldn't need to do anything so feral when it came to _him_. In another of Englehorn's books, a Dutch zoologist gave an account of how he'd seen a lioness chase down a native man, spring, and break the poor guy's neck with one blow. That was an outcome Jack Driscoll desperately didn't want to think about.

_Well, I do have the fire as my ace after all, and I can probably send both of them packing with a good swipe if they do become hostile, _the playwright reassured himself.

"Yes, I suppose you may," he told them as he inhaled to fortify himself. "Just as long as I know that you have peaceful intentions."

"Of course we do," Sarabi heartily assured him. "Both of you are more than welcome here."

"Why would we ever want to harm you?" Sarafina chipped in with a gentle "Think about it now," undertone to her voice. "You saved our children's lives!"

"An extremely good point," Jack admitted with a smile of sheepish pride. At that, he took a gamble and began to tentatively walk towards the lion mothers, halting, taking steps, halting and creeping forward again as he held the torch out behind him like a taillight. The lionesses did the same thing, padding forwards with a considerate slowness as their eyes glowed, allowing the human to do this on his own terms.

As he got within touching distance, Jack heard a scraping of bark, then a soft impact as Ann left her perch in the olive tree and lightly jumped to the ground. He didn't dare look back though, not while stopping and extending his left hand to a wild lioness. How easily Sarabi could give just one snap and bite off his hand with those teeth…

Although he did have to stretch a good deal, Jack Driscoll's fingers nonetheless contacted the lion queen's velvet muzzle and thankfully nothing happened. It had been a risky act; one of supreme trust, and both parties could recognize what had passed for what a touching thing it really was.

Pulling back, Jack relaxed, feeling a bit disgusted at himself for being so overcautious. Zazu had been right, there was nothing to fret his head about with the lionesses. More confident, probably as a result of having already bonded with the most intimidating beast of all Jack thought, Ann herself joined him then and also petted the tawny cats.

"That wasn't so bad now after all, was it?" Sarabi good-humoredly said.

"Actually, no. Downright swell in fact," Jack contentedly smiled, inhaling the scent of the cats as he felt the sleek curve of their shoulders. Interestingly, they smelt very much like the honeyed tobacco Carl sometimes smoked in his pipe (Jack rarely smoked himself except for the sporadic cigar), with a distinct but mild overlay of carrion.

"Your fur feels so soft," Ann complimented Sarafina, "like velvet."

"I don't know what that is, but thank you anyway," the lioness smiled, leaning into Ann's legs.

"Now would you like to meet the rest of the pride Jack and Ann?" Sarabi offered.

"How do you know our…Oh, Zazu or Nala must've told you," Jack said as the realization floated up within him. Returning back to the lion queen's invitation, he nodded without hesitation this time. "Just show us the way up Your Majesty. Ann, could you take the bone doll?" he sweetly asked her.

"Sure Jack."

"The ramp's right this way," Sarabi told them as she turned and Jack followed, torch held erect with his sweetheart beside him. As the lionesses led them on, both the firelight and moonlight revealed a natural combination of ramp and staircase at the right of the great stone slab. It seemed stable enough, and Jack began climbing.

With their center of gravity low to the ground, and hindlegs to work as pistons to push the body up while the forelegs act as anchors, lions and most other mammals are quite accomplished at climbing sloping terrain. As humans, with their center of gravity higher and handicapped further by holding an object in one hand, Jack and Ann had a slightly more difficult time.

He smelt the rest of the pride, and they saw the light from his torch, before they even saw each other. As he took the last few steps, feeling a sensation of _déjà vu_ at how it reminded him of how he'd climbed the crumbling steps to the ape's mountaintop lair, Jack could smell an even more potent carrion aroma while supporting himself with his free hand.

"Whoa!" he shot in surprise when he stood up, upon seeing that there were nine more lionesses in addition to Sarabi and Sarafina. Zazu was there too of course. Rising to the occasion though, the writer adopted as proud and formal a posture as he could manage under the circumstances, telling the lionesses, "I'm Jack Driscoll. Happy and honored to meet all of you."

Taking the halter, Ann also introduced herself to the amazed, yet respectful lions, her eyes half downcast and cheeks flushing. Jack had a pretty good idea why too, and felt a similar emotion in his face. The lions might have had something of the typical carnivore stench to them, but at least they were sleek, refined, and overall very well groomed in appearance.

He and Ann however to his embarrassment, looked like escapees from a prisoner of war camp in comparison, or perhaps more accurately from a mental asylum. Where was a good formal suit or at least a nice dinner jacket when you needed one? He didn't even have a hat on his head.

_If only I'd known I'd be meeting the animal kingdom's royalty when I went to save Ann, _he thought self-consciously, ridiculous as he knew it-what was happening to them this present moment for that matter-was.

"Pride sisters," Sarabi decreed, "these two humans have done a great service to the pride today. They have gained a place as honored heroes and privileged guests in the Pridelands. One of those privileges is sharing, and now we take the first step in that sharing by offering our identities."

To Jack and Ann's shared amazement, one by one, each lioness came forward in the firelight's glow and introduced herself, nuzzling first his legs as the male, then Ann's, as if the cats had known them all their lives.

One by one, Jack listened to and learned each lioness's moniker. Masega was the first. Then came Chakavu, Mbalamwezi, Ndugu, Purupuru, Maridadi, Chauski, Deiriai, and lastly young Jaha. Once everyone got to know each other, the lions adopted their more usual languid yet still elegant disposition.

That helped break the ice even further, and very soon Jack Driscoll found himself, after having lodged the bone torch between two rocks, freely socializing with and petting the lions in its light with Ann as if this was some surreal cross between a Sunday at the Brooklyn Zoo and a wedding reception. Frank Buck would be banging a baseball bat against his pith helmet-crowned head in sheer envy at the idea of doing something like this with wild lions, Jack strongly suspected.

"May we look around a bit?" Ann requested, voicing Jack's own intentions.

"Feel free," Purupuru shrugged.

The big cave was the most striking feature Jack could see, and since it would almost certainly be the place where he and Ann would be hitting the hay tonight, he took up the torch and followed her over to its mouth.

A wave of stink hit him, and Jack couldn't help but utter "Good Lord" under his breath as his nose wrinkled at the beastly reek. Ann automatically pinched her nose shut for a few seconds before contritely breathing through her mouth to make her offense less obvious to the lions.

Since being installed in his rather dignity-deficient quarters on the Venture, Jack Driscoll had become used to the smell of the former occupants of the lion cage and the other enclosures over the previous six weeks. Then too, he knew well indeed what a housecat's "used" litter box smelt like, especially when it was time to replace the sand. Both of those however, had been lying fallow and were cleaned out as needed.

No one had cleaned this cave out, and it completely reeked of lion waste, not to mention guano from bats and uneaten remnants of kills, although there weren't many of those. Still, it was dry and warm, offering a good roof over their heads, and Jack supposed he shouldn't be pronouncing judgment when his current state of hygiene was taken into account.

"We're terribly sorry if it smells bad," Chauski apologized. "We usually eat our kills where they lay, but sometimes we bring them back here if they're smaller and we want shelter, and the bats really can't be helped," she explained.

"No that's okay," Ann sweetly said.

"We won't even know it's there within the hour," Jack dismissed with an equally pretend doesn't-seem-unpleasant-to-us-at-all tone.

"Actually," Sarabi suggested, "there's a smaller cave to the left side that perhaps would offer more suitable quarters for you. It's where many of the visitors to Pride Rock want to rest or sleep anyhow. It's the rare antelope for example, that feels secure enough to bed down with lions," she smiled knowingly.

"Like a guest room then. Swell," Jack said with a thin smile of relief. He didn't dare say anything out of turn, but he too, didn't as yet feel completely comfortable with the idea of sleeping alongside lions. Animal handlers and people who hand-raised lions as pets might gladly curl up with them, but Jack Driscoll didn't think he was bold enough to do that with ones he still barely knew.

"That's very nice to hear. Thank you," Ann courteously said.

"Our pleasure."

It didn't take Jack long to find the smaller cave, and fortunately Sarabi was right. It smelled much better, was also dry and warm, had a lower roof, and by a lucky coincidence even a large crack in the floor where the playwright could jam the torch. Grateful to get it out of his hands, he did just that, giving a welcome stretch after.

"Why do you need fire and carry it around like that?" Mbalamwezi asked.

Now practiced, Jack told her and the others, "Well, that's because we're pretty much hairless, and so we need it to-"

"keep ourselves warm and for defense too," a commanding baritone voice finished in amusement from the top of the stairs.

Turning in surprise and taking a few steps forward, Jack saw that it was Mufasa again, smiling with a jubilant yet reflective Simba scampering beside him.

"Simba! Oh thank the great kings that you're all right," Sarabi gratefully exclaimed, cantering over to head-butt her son and then lick him so hard it almost knocked the lion prince off his feet as Mufasa watched.

"Yeah Mom, of course I'm all right," Simba told her in confusion as he suffered through his mother's expressions of relieved joy.

"Now did you learn an important lesson today about why you should follow directions and _not_ go to places I or your father say are unsafe?" she sternly said while raising an eyebrow.

"I guess I sure did," Simba sheepishly admitted. It reminded Jack of his mother Esther saying something similar to him about not leaning back in chairs after a nasty scalp bruise. "I thought I was being brave, but I was doing something dumb instead," he maturely stated.

"You're wiser now though, aren't you?" Sarabi said.

"Yeah, and good thing that Mr. Driscoll came with-Hey, there you are!" Simba happily exclaimed on seeing the writer and Ann. "Aren't they so nice Mom, and isn't it cool how they can control fire? Can they stay here for the night? Please?" he babbled excitedly.

"Actually," Ann told him, "your mother just showed us a place where we'll be sleeping for tonight."

"Yay!" Simba cheered. "We'll have so much fun, telling stories, wrestling, playing tag, playing pawlines-"

"Whoa, settle down little guy," Mufasa jovially advised him. "Don't count your guinea fowls before they've hatched." Turning his attention to Jack, the lion said, "I assume that since the torch is in there you've picked the smaller cave to sleep in tonight, correct?"

"That's right your Majesty," Jack told him. "We've chosen it as our new domicile," he said, feeling his mouth corners slide upward in a smile.

"If we like it we might stay here for quite a while," Ann impishly quipped.

"I don't see any reason why you can't," Mufasa chuckled. "Surely heroes deserve that much at least. Is there anything you need to make it more to your liking by the way?" he munificently offered.

"To be on the level here, we do need wood and grass to burn for a fire, and make some sort of bed since we don't sleep on hard rock," Jack admitted. "But I can collect that myself."

"I'll help you Jack," Ann volunteered.

"Then let's go gather some while the night is young," Jack said, gauging the strength of the moonlight before heading back to the staircase.

"Before you do that though, if you don't mind," Mufasa cordially suggested, "we'd be interested in hearing where both of you were putting your heads before today."

"In other words, where we came from and what has happened to us recently, right Your Majesty?" Ann said.

"Umm-hmm. You are the first humans to come to the Pridelands since at least the time of my great-grandfather Khairi, you see, and naturally we're curious about why. Besides, I think you both look like you've done quite a bit of walking, and could stand to take a load off your feet," the lion wisely commented. It was the truth.

"For God's sake yes," Jack said, happy to sit down even if granite wasn't the best surface to rest his bruised bottom on.

"Awesome!" Simba cheered happily, using yet another example of that strange animal slang Jack assumed meant something like the cat's pajamas. "I bet this story will be so great to hear."

At that Jack's gut squeezed again, and he locked his gaze with Ann's, both of them reading the mutual pain and fear of Skull Island in the other's face.

"Actually Simba," Zazu wisely said, unknowingly speaking for the two of them, "it's probably not going to be much fun to hear at all," looking at their bruises and marks.

_You don't understand how right you are Zazu…_, Jack thought as he inhaled and closed his eyes for a few moments, Ann kneading the juncture between his neck and right shoulder with one hand in sympathy while he stroked her ribs in turn. She'd come to rely on him, and he on her, as their shared comfort and strength amazingly fast.

People who have suffered through a deeply traumatic experience usually respond to invitations to speak about it in one of two ways: They may flat out refuse, preferring to only discuss it with family members and close friends-if even that-, only bringing it out into the open if badgered. Or, they may be quite happy to chat about the painful affair, seeing it as a way of healing and hopefully coming to terms with what has scarred them. Jack Driscoll belonged to the latter category.

"Absolutely Zazu old boy, it's _not_ fun at all. Not to hear or especially to endure," the writer grimly said, as he looked skyward at the stars. "It's nothing less than a miracle that we're both still breathing, we can attest to that. Since I really have nothing better to do, would you fellas like to hear the whole thing from day one or just from when we got to the island?"

"As much as you can," Chakavu politely requested. "But it's your prerogative on how you want to tell it of course."

"All right then," Jack said with a deep breath. "We tell our own sides like last time Ann?" he respectfully asked.

"That's okay with me," she answered. "And I'll tell any-incidents-if you don't want to," she kindly added, running her smooth warm fingers through his hair.

"I'll do the same," he gladly told her. Returning his gaze back to the lions, he started on the introduction, saying, "First of all, Ann and I aren't used to being out by our lonesome selves like this. It's hard to imagine, but if you lions walked to the west, following the setting sun, you'd come to a huge lake after a while. Beyond that, more or less, is an enormous jungle. It would take months to get to the other side. There is a place however, where both the jungle and the land would finally stop. Beyond that is a gigantic amount of water, more than you could comprehend, deep enough to swallow mountains and tasting of salt."

"Water that tastes like salt? Yuck," Nala said, making a face.

"Could all this water swallow Pride Rock?" Simba asked.

"Absolutely little fella," Jack assured him. "Several thousand times over, and I'm pretty sure even the strongest crocodile couldn't swim across. It would take weeks at least for even a bird to cross"

"But beyond even _that_," he continued, "is more land, and if you followed the shore north, eventually you'd come to a huge city where Ann and I both were born, raised, and until recently lived with lots and lots of other members of our kind."

"To say the least," Ann commented.

"What's a city?" Sarabi asked.

Thinking hard about how he could explain this to the cats, Jack meditatively exhaled and said, "A city is a giant collection of these structures called buildings, which we live, sleep, eat, and work in."

"Like termite mounds," Maridadi stated.

"Yeah, quite like them, only much bigger," the impressed playwright confirmed. "Some are barely bigger than a large thornbush, while others are twice as tall as Pride Rock."

"Wow!" Simba and Nala both exclaimed in awe.

"So perhaps this place is called the Humanlands," Mufasa guessed.

Giving a faint snort of amusement and smiling crookedly, Jack said, "A creative term indeed Your Majesty, but we know it as New York City instead."

"You said that there are very many of your kind there. About how many are in this city?" Ndugu questioned.

"Millions," Jack stressed. "A couple million to be exact , more humans there than there are stars in the sky above us," pointing up to the navy blue dome above their heads to push home his point.

"Great Ngai," Sarafina whispered.

"Incredible to believe, isn't it?" Ann knowingly said.

"Certainly," a stunned Purupuru responded.

Deciding to just cut to the chase a bit, Jack Driscoll continued, "Anyway, as I said, we've lived there our entire lives until about a month and a half ago, and had never even clapped eyes on each other until Carl, one of my good friends brought us together and got both me and Ann on the same boat-which is a big floating object that can take you very long distances across water-in his typically wacky and manipulative way…"

* * *

As before, enjoy yourselves readers, and let's hope I can come up with enough ideas to make a chapter 14! 


	14. Royal Reactions and Discussions

I can say with proud certainty readers, that not even the worst case of writer's block can stop me in my tracks forever! I do apologize for keeping my fans waiting for so long though.

I watched The Lion King just last Sunday by the way, and it struck me, "Hey, hornbills are diurnal birds-but lions are nocturnal animals more or less. Who acts as majordomo when Zazu's sleeping?" Hence, an OC was born and makes his debut/cameo in response to this valid question.

Thanks for your advice about Scar RebeccaAnn!

* * *

_One man with courage is a majority. _Thomas Jefferson.

_For a host above all, must be kind to his guests. _From Thidwick, The Big-hearted Moose by Dr. Seuss.

As Ann lightly rested in the crook of Jack's right arm, relishing in the feel of his soothing half-embrace as the frogs and scops-owls called, she listened while he flatteringly told the lion king, "And then you came in the nick of time to save everyone Your Majesty, just like Englehorn had. The rest everyone knows. What'll happen to us next is frankly anyone's guess at this rate, although I'm pretty sure there'll never be a dull moment on our way back either," he surmised with a skewed smile. "Agree with me Ann sweetheart?" he asked while turning to lock eyes.

"Pos-I-tive-ly," she responded, feeling her mouth corners slide upward. "I'd like it if there _were_ a lot less to have to deal with myself however," she said dryly. Christ knew there'd been enough of those to deal with.

"Yeah," Simba agreed. "That Skull Island sure must've really sucked."

"Language," Sarabi cautioned him. "A prince shouldn't use those words."

"It's fine. We don't even know what your slang means half the time," Jack shrugged with a smile. "But whatever it means, we're very happy to be off it and alive," giving Ann a relieved squeeze with his arm, sending the message to where it counted.

Shaking his head in confused amazement, Mufasa said, "There are many things about your account of what happened to you both on that island that we don't-can't-understand."

"We're fully aware of that," Ann said, lightly itching a tsetse fly bite near her spine. "And that's alright."

"There are some things you probably _shouldn't_ understand," Jack dourly said.

"But there's one thing we can definitely tell from it," the lion king added, "and that's that you humans have astonishing courage. To stand up to hyenas as you both did was remarkable enough, but the rest… Even I'd be given pause at the idea of doing some of those things."

"I completely agree, agree that you both have exceptional bravery," Sarabi responded, a tone of astonished incomprehension to her voice. "In fact…"

Abruptly, the lioness queen got to her feet then. Taking an orator's stance, she gave a deep, husky cough, and proclaimed, "Pride Sisters! If there was already any doubt before, is plenty of room here at Pride Rock for two humans who not only have saved our cubs, but have also distinguished themselves by their near-supernatural feats and demonstrations of heroism, loyalty, courage, devotion and wills of granite?"

"Certainly there is!" every lioness responded vocally.

"Thank you Your Majesty. Everyone," Ann answered with demure pride and tension in one at the memories. It was something profoundly special to have a lion king and lion queen giving praise to _her_, just a mere out-of-work vaudeville actress, and her man Jack for exceptional bravery. She felt moved enough by it for tears to almost flow, and he rubbed her head affectionately into Jack's neck base as she smiled.

Lions think very highly of those who exhibit great courage. In a society where nomadic males are always looking to unseat the reigning king and kill off his cubs, and only 20 of all cubs live to reach adulthood, a pride male simply cannot afford to be indecisive or a pushover when it comes to physical conflict. Nor can the lioness, which if she feels her cubs are in trouble, will boldly stand up to creatures that she'd normally flee from, like Cape buffalo.

It was no surprise then, that the listening, awed big cats now regarded the New Yorkers with a nearly stratospheric admiration. As cats though, Ann could tell that their reactions were more of the academic, proud kind, not the aghast sympathy-filled sort that the painted dogs had shown in the woodland. Instead, it was more similar to the type her mother for example, would display whenever she'd done especially well in her schooling.

"I appreciate hearing that," an also touched Jack responded in kind. "Neither of us asked in any way to go through that horror, but we came out alive, and a lot stronger. And together," he gratefully added, locking thankful eyes with her own, the moonlight bringing his Roman features into sharp silver relief as he took her jaw in his warm hand and slowly kissed her on the right temple.

When the thrill of that had dissipated, Mufasa then pointed out, "And you Jack, without any of the protection the ape offered Ann, you literally climbed a mountain alone through those horrors to rescue her. You strongly deserve to be called Abu Chuma."

Brows furrowed in puzzlement, Jack and Ann briefly met each other's eyes before Jack replied, "I'm sorry Your Majesty, but we don't know any Swahili."

"Oh. My fault for not knowing that. The title means Father of Heroes."

"We don't know if we should call you amazingly devoted or totally crazy," Ndugu playfully remarked. "That dilemma might take a while to resolve."

Jack chuckled, saying, "It might take a while for even me to settle on a suitable category for the state that I was working in. But I think that it's both," he solemnly volunteered, treating Ann to the comforting sensation of his fingers running through her golden curls, "for this is the dame that I'm completely crazy about and devoted to," he said, more to her grateful soul rather than the lions.

Blissfully, Ann leaned to her left, putting her head in the pit of Jack's collarbone, looking up at him as she said, softly but with conviction, "As far as I'm concerned Jack, you _are_ my father of heroes."

"And you my angel," he whispered to her. "But can I just be Jack Machwkowski Driscoll instead to you?"

"Most definitely," she smiled. Suddenly she remembered the lions and pulled away from Jack in embarrassment, feeling her cheeks flush red as she turned her head away.

"No need to feel that way," Purupuru assured them with a flick of her paw. "We show affection in the open all the time, and you both deserve a spell of it."

_We need it._

"Now I know why you didn't want to talk about the way your friend Lumpy died," Nala commented with a shudder to Jack. "That was so gross and awful. I'm sorry." Ann got the impression too that Nala also felt sorry she'd even been interested in hearing Jack's account after the story had turned out to be as gruesome as _that._

"Not your fault at all Nala. But that gorge was absolutely no joke, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to get that Satan-made place out of my head," Jack said in a breathy, slightly strained voice, swallowing and slipping his arm from behind Ann's body, rubbing his temples as he bent his head back in the three-quarter moonlight.

Ann found it deeply moving to see how even when remembering that obscenely horrific experience, Jack still remained as strong as he outwardly could. Staying strong for _her_. She gave back by refusing to weep again, and reaching out to mesh her pale fingers with his tanned ones. He responded with a smile, and by taking her around the torso once more with that muscled arm. To think that the feeling had nearly been taken away so many times! For now however, Ann felt safe, both for herself _and_ Jack with these friendly, powerful lions around.

"Well, needless to say," Mufasa rollingly commented to Jack, "everyone's happy to know that you escaped from those disgusting aberrations of insects. And you from the creatures you call Tyrannosaurs," the lion king added while turning in Ann's direction.

"You couldn't imagine it unless you'd actually been there. It was shockingly hideous for us both," Jack said, looking at his gut and shaking his head.

"The whole _island_ was hideous in every way," Ann voiced, pursing her lips.

_Except for that magnificent ape, and the bond we made together…._ And was it just her, or was the same thing happening with _both_ her and Jack in regards to Mufasa?

She strongly felt that it was, and it silently thrilled her. At the very least, Ann knew that after six weeks of being the only dame on the steamer, she was definitely immensely grateful to finally have real female company, even it did crazily come in the form of talking lionesses. The wharf floozies, irritating merchant's wives, and those local women who couldn't speak a word of English which haunted the docks of the various ports they'd stopped at en route-and then only for a matter of hours-just couldn't cut it.

Then too, Carl, naturally having a selfish interest in the personal safety of his film's leading lady, often would remind her at these stops, "Remember Ann, these places aren't safe to be going and wandering around. The people here range from lamebrain drunkards at best, to positively crackers at the worst. You'd better either have a weapon on hand or be in the company of a fella with cojones if you plan to go sightseeing-and I should know."

Although Ann found his admonishments to be annoying, and suspected Carl was inflating the dangers, he was still both the man with experience, and the person ultimately responsible for her paycheck. So she'd stayed on board or enlisted a sailor's protection each time the steamer had docked.

"At least you're safe with us now," Sarafina said then in unknowing irony. "And by Ngai's feet, you humans are such clever creatures! Those-what are they? Machines?-you make are hard to wrap the mind around."

"But if you say they exist, we believe it," Sarabi added. "It seems that your kind is composed of geniuses."

"Some of are, some of us empathetically aren't," Jack joked with a crooked grin as Ann lightly laughed, taken by how true it was.

"I wish I could get to ride in one of those-uh, rhino type things of metal that go on those huge black fungus circles. What do you call them?" Simba asked in confusion.

"Car. They're called cars, or automobiles," Jack helpfully said.

"Yeah, that's it! Thanks Mr. Driscoll," Simba beamed.

"I'd like to sleep in one of those beds," Nala said with pointed wistfulness. "They sound so soft and comfortable."

"It's too bad you two live so far away and will have to return home," Mufasa playfully chuckled. "Otherwise, since you're such intelligent beings, I'd probably have to demote Zazu and make both of you my advisors instead."

"I should think you'll do no such thing Sire!" Zazu replied with mock gruffness, wings akimbo as Ann's high laugh joined with Jack's huskier one. The hornbill yawned then, stretching his wings before saying, "And if you'll all excuse me, it's been quite a long day for this bird. May I go to my roost now Sire?" he asked Mufasa.

"By all means. Your night replacement should be coming any moment now anyway."

"Thank you my king." Springing up into the air, Zazu cried from over his shoulder, "Good night Jack! Good night Ann! I'll see you tomorrow morning and we hopefully can talk more!" Then he was gone, a blue dot gliding up to a sausage tree and becoming one with the trunk as he disappeared into a tree hole.

"Good night Zazu!" Ann responded, standing with Jack and waving her arm.

"Sleep well," Jack politely added.

Leaving Nala, Simba went over to his mother, putting his forepaws against her leg and softly asking, "Mom, can Nala and I go play for a bit before the night's hunt?"

After thinking for a few seconds, Sarabi graciously nodded, telling her son, "Just stick close. There might not be hyenas in the Pridelands after all, but there are jackals and leopards aplenty. I'll come get you when it's time."

"Thanks Mom," Simba happily said, rubbing his head against hers before joyfully scampering off into the moonlight with Nala.

"I'll go along and watch them both," Sarafina volunteered.

"After what almost happened to them today, I think we all should," Masega matter-of-factly said.

"Eh, we can do some pre-hunt socializing too I guess," Ndugu meditatively reasoned.

"I'll be out with you before too long," Sarabi told the rest of her pride as they filed down the natural stairs, slinky forms mantled in ash-gray silk.

_The lionesses do the hunting? _Ann thought in amazed interest. She'd always heard and believed that the _male_ lion was the hunter and breadwinner. Then again, she'd always been certain that dinosaurs were extinct, animals couldn't speak a word, and apes never got bigger than the ones in zoos. This was small potatoes compared to those mind-shattering previous experiences.

Jack clearly felt the same, for his eyes widened and he looked at Mufasa, saying "Your gals do the hunting for you? What's that all about?"

After regarding him blankly for a moment, Sarabi spoke first, saying simply, "Because that's how it's always been done among our kind. You both seem surprised at this though. Why is that?"

Taking a deep breath, Jack flicked his mat of moon-silvered hair, accented by firelight, back before explaining, with cautious tact, "It's because in our species, the man traditionally does the hunting and providing for the woman. Maybe it's presumptuous on our part, but we consider that since men go out and hunt, male lions also…Well, you probably get the picture," he finished with a weak smile.

"I see what you're saying," Mufasa responded with regal thoughtfulness. "Just as the male eagles do for their females sitting on the nest."

"Pos-I-tive-ly," Ann responded, pretending that she knew what the lion king was actually talking about as she gave a nod and sweet smile.

"And therefore, something about this seems rather unfair in your eyes, I presume?"

His soft, nonaggressive bluntness took them both off guard, and Jack hurriedly sputtered, "Oh no, it doesn't at…I mean, it _does_, and yet…Good Jesus," he said in defeated resignation, smacking a hand against his forehead.

"A little, but it's more because it flies in the face of our traditional value judgments and expectations as humans. If it works for you, that's all that matters," he quickly added in appeasement.

"And it works for us very well," Sarabi calmly told them. "A queen and her pride sisters consider it an immensely honorable task to hunt and kill for their king and cubs. Nothing is unfair about it to us in the least."

Stepping in, Mufasa said, "As for the king's side of the story, my duty is to protect my queen, son, and other pride members from other males and hyenas."

Worried that he might be getting irritated, although she doubted it, Ann flatteringly told him, "Which you demonstrated to such dramatic effect today your Majesty."

"Yeah, we have absolutely no doubt about your ability to protect your own," Jack grinned.

"Thank you. And even Simba told me that those hyenas were far more scared than I was," Mufasa warmly recollected, a thin smile of deserving pride appearing on his imperial features. "But your account proves that you're a pretty decent battler against your own kind too Jack," the lion added with an impressed air.

_Those savages_…Ann thought, and they gave each other thin gazes.

"They're no members of my species Your Majesty," Jack replied with a soft, haunted grimness, and Ann inwardly quivered for a moment in total agreement. "Don't mention it," he finished, and Ann knew that it wasn't merely flippant dismissal.

"Well, as I was saying before, as the pride's ruler, it is essential that I literally keep myself fighting fit, for whenever nomad males come. And that is best served by having the lionesses generally act as the huntresses for me, so I can have plenty of time to patrol and keep a lookout for nomad males."

"Still," he added, "sometimes I'll kill prey for myself, although it's difficult to stalk much of anything when you have this huge mane like a bush growing out of your neck," he playfully joshed.

Ann giggled in understanding, then Sarabi finished, "So we feed him and free up his time, while he protects us and our cubs, also giving us peace of mind in return."

"I see," Jack nodded. "A swell system. Perhaps one we should consider as a race, hmm Ann?" he suggested with a teasing crooked grin.

"We broads have enough to do with the babies and chores, so don't even think about it Mr. Driscoll!" Ann shot back with mock protest. But the pretense couldn't be held back for long, and Ann found herself giggling.

Jack chuckled in amusement for a goodly amount of time-jokes about the battle of the sexes usually never failed to count among his favorites-, and a distant, analytical part of Ann Darrow used it to briefly ponder something in the meantime.

As Ann had told her tale of the terrible life-threatening trials she'd faced on Skull Island along with Jack, she'd observantly noticed a strange look come on the faces of the lions when they'd mentioned how they'd arrived in their domain, and be maintained to a degree. They'd certainly been interested enough in having them repeat that swiftly passing moment, the one of the green flash, to the finest detail. The curiosity expressed by the tawny cats had been partly transferred to Ann herself, and she wondered if the beasts either knew more about just exactly what had occurred at that moment on the island and _why _it had than they felt like telling, or more likely _suspected_ what could've been behind it, but didn't want to speculate out loud on a theory.

Theory. The very ridiculousness of the thought made Ann chuckle herself inwardly. They were lions for the Good Lord's sake! They could speak, and they displayed human-level smarts, but they still couldn't perform the kind of mental acrobatics as Mr. Albert Einstein always did. Most likely it was just because that flash was something they couldn't wrap their minds around any more successfully then this broad could.

Her attention was diverted then when Jack, his amusement contained, asked of the lions in mild perplexity, "Say, when Zazu left Mufasa, what exactly did you mean by 'night replacement'?"

"The Pridelands never sleep," Mufasa explained, "and we lions are more or less nocturnal creatures, so it's just as important that we know what's going on at night as by day. And unfortunately, hyenas are themselves creatures of the night," Mufasa coolly pointed out.

"They're most active between dusk and midnight, and we need a good nose and pair of eyes to help keep abreast of them and inform me of what's what."

"I see," Jack nodded. "But what animal does that job?"

There was a flapping of leathery wings from behind Ann's head, and a thin voice saying, "Mbili is the one!" For a few instants, Ann recalled the reeking, flying gargoyles that dwelt in Kong's lair, and how they'd attacked her and Jack on the vine, eyes glowing.

Naturally she startled, whipping around and backing into Jack so swiftly that she almost knocked him over, spine meeting against bruised ribs as she gave a thin gasp.

Halting his fall with one hand and recovering his balance after a few clenched seconds, Jack soothingly told her, "Calm down Ann. It's just a normal bat."

"This is Mbili," Sarabi purred out, "an Egyptian fruit bat who serves us at night. He bites nothing but fruit, so don't worry."

And indeed, Ann wondered why she'd flinched from such a creature at all. Even if he did look similar to a little flying devil, Mbili, (who had now landed between them and the lions) didn't look nearly as frightening as his Skull Island counterparts did. He had soft liquid brown eyes, sleek medium brown fur above and cream colored below with perked little ears and a doglike muzzle. Harmless.

For his part, the bat was staring back at her and Jack in wonder as well with his varnished eyes.

"You're the humans all my friends were talking about!" Mbili said in an awed, deeper squeak.

"The Real McCoy has arrived here," Jack wryly nodded.

"Come to think of it, a fair number of bats _did_ come with the birds back at the waterhole, didn't they Jack?" Ann asked as she turned to him, more as unneeded conformation of what she'd seen rather than seeking a real answer.

"Yeah, now that I think on it," Jack distantly replied, more focused on Mbili than the question itself. "When the word gets around, Christ knows the word sure gets around."

"Well, I thought they were making it up," Mbili said with a shrug of his brown shoulders. "I was also too tired to see for myself," he admitted with mild embarrassment.

"We're all on the same kopje," Mufasa assured him. "We lions didn't even know about our visitors until much later."

"That's what you get for being nocturnal," Sarabi said to the Egyptian fruit bat with an uncharacteristic impishness, Ann joining with an understanding giggle.

Giving a thin smile, Mufasa looked up then at the moon, thoughtfully commenting, "And now it's time to get down to the night's business. Mbili, I trust you've had a good meal of figs already?"

"Sure have, Your Majesty," the fruit bat nodded. "With that done, I guess its time to begin the patrolling and the intelligence gathering."

"Then get to it," Sarabi told him good-naturedly.

"Hey, sorry I can't stay and chat more, Jack and Ann," Mbili told them apologetically, looking over his shoulder as the lion couple moved to give him an open flight path. "But as much of a pleasure as it truly would be, duty still calls," he said, throwing his body up into the air and going off with a leathery flapping into the navy blue sky, the stars now lightly obscured here and there by a few scudding clouds.

"You seem to really have quite the staff of helpers Your Majesty," Jack commented in the meantime after the Egyptian fruit bat had flown off.

"I agree," Mufasa regally nodded. "But as much as a king's ego would frankly be pleased by it, no ruler can stand, much less keep a kingdom in order, all alone."

"And that's equally true for rulers of our own species. Sure can be hard to be a biggie sometimes," Jack thoughtfully concurred.

A hollow, gently pinching feeling came to Ann's stomach then, and she straightened, telling Jack, "I know this is a sudden change in subject, but I'm feeling like having some dinner."

For a brief moment, Jack's moon-whitened features were nonplussed. "Say, that was a pretty sudden change there. But you're right. After having so many words coming out of our mouths, it's time to have some food come in now. Figs sound good?" he asked with an eye-lightening smile.

"Very much so," Ann responded.

As she'd been speaking with Jack, Sarabi and Mufasa had moved off to speak in private. Ann had assumed it was about tonight's hunt, or something else that wasn't their concern, and dismissed it.

Now however, Sarabi came forward again, giving a loud cough through the calling of the tree crickets and katydids to get their attention. "Speaking of food," she told them in her regal, languid voice, "Mufasa and I have been discussing what the future will hold for both of you in the long term."

"A valid thought indeed," Jack said.

Mufasa nodded, saying, "As I said before, there is a huge amount of your account and lifestyles that you described to us that we can't get our heads around. The honesty and conviction that you said it with though, leaves no doubt that it's true however."

"I wish a good deal of it wasn't," Ann said dolefully.

"Don't blame you," the lion king said. "But one thing we can figure out," he continued, "is that the world and lifestyle that we know as lions is vastly alien to what you are accustomed to as humans."

"That's the truth," Jack replied with pointed dryness as Ann nodded in fervent agreement. They literally were a whole ocean away from the city that she and Jack knew so well…

"We can't state enough how immensely grateful we are for what you did today Ann and Jack, and it doesn't need explaining that both of you can live among us at Pride Rock for as short or as long a time as you wish," Mufasa said.

"Again, it was our pleasure, and we're equally grateful that you've freely welcomed us into your home," Jack warmly told the lion with a smile.

"The least we can do," Mufasa purred out. "But no matter how long you choose to stay, you're our guests, definitely not our prisoners, and it would be neither right nor practical to have you remain here forever."

"Nor would we want that," Ann simply stated, thinking of America's faraway shores and how if he had his way, Kong would keep her from them and other people forever. Still, there was a weirdly romantic part of her that did faintly miss him and wish him well even now.

She couldn't help but wonder if Kong had seen the green flash as well, enveloping her and Jack in one eyeblink and leaving only a naked vine the next. What he thought of it, Ann could only imagine, but no doubt he believed in utter fury that Jack had had more than a little to do with that particularly upsetting magic trick.

"That's right. We have lives and friends and our fellow humans back home, and although it's a gift to call you our pals-I mean it-," Jack earnestly stated, "for better or worse Ann and I have to at least attempt to get back to the civilized world we know."

"Of course. That's just what we were about to say ourselves," Sarabi said in her rich voice. "And that brings us to a second reward I want to offer for saving Simba and Nala."

"A second reward? Whatever do you mean by that?" Ann asked in confusion.

"The first you've already received," the lioness told them. "Being able to be with the Mzima Pride here at Pride Rock, for as long as you choose to stay is an immense reward in itself."

"I think I know what the second one already is," Jack perceptively said. "Has the word training got anything to do with it I presume?"

"You're right on the zebra's stripe," Mufasa approvingly responded. "Very good."

Becoming more serious then, the lion king said, "You may not like hearing this Jack and Ann, but this too is a world of kill or be killed, and even we lions are subject to its laws. I told Simba just this morning that every living thing exists in a balance, the Great Circle of Life, where everyone is equal. But the Circle can be a brutal mistress nonetheless, and it won't treat you any less harshly."

"I know, and even us city people are aware of that fact. We're already familiar enough with how it works out here too," Jack responded.

Sensing what the royal couple intended to propose, Ann said to Mufasa and Sarabi, "So you want to help us increase our chances of beating the odds by teaching us what we need to know, right?"

"You've got it," a pleased Sarabi said. "Some of it we, Zazu, or Mbili can tell you, but there's a lot of stuff you'll have to learn by doing. There are no timetables, so don't worry."

The offer was more than Ann could ever have hoped for, and the anticipation of leaving Pride Rock a lot less naïve and more self-sufficient, ready to take on whatever Africa could throw at them, was cheering and lifted quite a load off her chest. They'd more than likely still require some help from other animals, but experience had taught Ann Darrow well that there was also something to be said for the dictum that the Lord helped people who helped themselves.

Not believing such an even greater turn of good luck, she and Jack incredulously looked into each other's eyes. Agog, Jack just mouthed "Wow" at their fortune.

"We appreciate that so much Your Highnesses," Jack told them as they both stood up. "And although you didn't propose it, that's a swell deal indeed."

"This 'learn by doing' stuff you told us about Sarabi, will we be doing it after you and your pride hunt?" Ann inquired.

"No, because you still have to pick up where you left off and make a 'bed' for the two of you."

"You're right," Ann replied, nodding in recollection. "To say nothing of getting firewood."

"I'll do my part and help my dame out," Jack warmly told her, slipping his right arm around her waist as he led her to the top of the stairs.

"Sorry, but you won't be doing that tonight Jack, because I'll be the help," Mufasa pronounced.

Taken by surprise, Ann stood bolt upright and whipped her head around in company with Jack as he shouted, "Why in Christ's name can't I?"

With no trace of anger or force in her voice, simply a calm reasonableness, Sarabi responded, "Because your education in self-sufficiency starts right now Jack. You're going to accompany us lionesses on the hunt…and you are going to learn how to kill for yourself."

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God, what crappy quotes for this Chapter. Needless to say, Chapter 15 will contain some animal-on-animal violence, human-on-animal violence, and some quite deep thoughts. 


	15. The Darker Side of Paradise

**does the classic Steve Irwin Whooo-hoo! I saw Happy Feet last Friday night. What a drop-dead hilarious-and sweet-movie! If nothing else, watch it for the Latino Adelie penguins, because nearly everything that comes out of their mouths is guarenteed to crack you up!**

**But getting down to business... Man, this chapter is so_ insanely_ long, but thankfully it went fast. I have to caution my readers, some parts of this chapter are brutal with a capital B. They are all authentic or based on authentic animal behavior though. I also spent a good deal of time thinking about how we all descended from hunter-gatherers, and how even a playwright has those dormant instincts. Hopefully nothing Jack does here is terribly out of character for him.**

**Finally, I have to admit in embarrasment that although he plays a major role in this fanfic, I've been lazy and just skimmed over the subject of Scar and his interactions with our human heroes. This is partly because he's a very difficult character for me to capture, partly because I don't entirely know where I should insert that scene. At any rate, this chapter, the previous one, or maybe both will be revised as a result when I finally do get my vacillating mind together.**

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_Now Rann the kite brings home the night/ that Mang the bat sets free--/ The herds are shut in byre and hut/ for loosed until dawn are we./ This is the hour of pride and power,/ talon and tush and claw./ Oh, hear the call—Good hunting all,/ That keep the Jungle Law! _Night Song in the Jungle, from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, 1896. 

_There is a wolf in me…fangs pointed for tearing gashes…a red tongue for raw meat…and the hot lapping of blood-I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go. _Wilderness, by Carl Sandburg, 1918.

Golden Shadows, Flying Hooves. Title of a 1974 book by biologist George Schaller.

Standing only two hundred yards away from the base of Pride Rock, Jack Driscoll idly swung the second elephant bone, the one not being used as a torch, in his mitt of a right hand. He stopped to regard it dubiously. How in the hell was he going to actually kill anything with just this crude club and his bare hands?

As a playwright he was a stalker of words, not wild animals, and although he'd gone fishing a fair number of times in his life, -it was one of the few extracurricular activities he'd been able to do on the Venture for that matter-he'd only gone hunting vicariously. And he'd never had to. His meat was either served to him at a diner, or purchased from a butcher.

_And if by some miracle I do manage to kill an animal_, Jack thought, looking up at the three-quarter moon,_ knowing that they're not dumb beasts, but sentient, will I be able to stand it?_

That was a good, but amazingly surreal question all at once. And yet, there ultimately was no question from the start about it having to be done sooner or later.

Even after all the insane things that he'd endured and seen, ones that would alter his life and outlook forever, Jack Driscoll still remained a pragmatic man. And he knew with a dismal, crushing inevitability that if he didn't learn something about how to hunt, then the bottom line was he and Ann simply wouldn't eat. He had candidly told Mufasa for that matter, with perhaps an embarrassing bit of gloating self-righteousness, that it was the man's job to hunt for and protect the woman.

_Well, you're the only fella here for miles, so then do your duty Jack!_

Inhaling, Jack looked up for maybe the fourteenth time at the place where the huge, hanging granite spur met the imposing island of rock's vertical face as a giant eagle owl uttered its deep, resounding pig-grunts from a wooded hollow half a mile to his left. Ann was briefly resting there with Mufasa before she went out to collect grass, reeds, and dead wood for bedding and firewood.

After how Skull Island's green hell had nearly devoured her several times, Jack didn't dare want to be too far away from the sight of his dazzling, sapphire-eyed angel so that he couldn't immediately rush to her aid if yet another danger threatened. It had taken a fair amount of soothing persuasion, both from the lions and Ann herself, to make Jack comfortable enough to trust Mufasa with her welfare, and even now part of him had serious worries about if he was doing the right thing.

The rational part of the playwright would just have to temper them with the fact that, "I trust Mufasa, and I know that if he meant to kill us, we'd both already be dead by now," words his own mouth had uttered. With the lion king at her side, both parties indebted and bonded to one another, Ann was with the safest companion and guard she could possibly have out here. Last but not least, Ann herself had confidently told him, "I'll be just fine as fine can be with Mufasa Jack. Now you go out and get us some dinner like a good fella," she'd teased.

During this time, the lionesses had all been sharing affection with each other, reaffirming their togetherness by rubbing their heads together, circling and almost seductively sliding their slinky muscled figures against flanks upholstered in blue-white plush, one often leaning so hard that she knocked the other off balance or even on her side-some of them had graciously tried to include Jack in the action, but quickly stopped after realizing that a two-legged mammal's body wasn't exactly as stable as their own. They crashed onto each other's broad backs, and rolled on their backs in the giant star grass. All the while, the huge cats hummed and moaned in good-natured pleasure.

Excited by the night, the time when the land truly became their kind's domain, and the prospect of a successful hunt, Simba and Nala were both frenetically scampering and chasing each other around, as energized as any kitten Jack had seen or raised back in New York. It was extremely amusing watching them pounce, leap at, swipe at, and bounce off their elders, and a charmed Jack felt that he could've honestly watched them do it for half the night.

But now it was literally time to get down to deadly business. With a grunting sort of cough, Sarabi got his and every other lion's attention. "Time to move out, Pride Sisters," she commanded simply.

When a lion pride is actively setting out to hunt, they more or less form a ragged single file, each lioness picking her place at random. As opposed to the strict hierarchy seen in hyenas or painted dogs, all lionesses in a pride are equal, and the lead lioness for a hunt varies each time, with the direction she chooses to lead her companions in being equally haphazard. (Among lions, the title of Queen is essentially more of an administrative one, besides one that recognizes her position as the King's "favorite" lioness and producer of his heir.) In fact, a dozing pride may spend the whole afternoon watching a steady stream of wildebeest and gazelle filing down to a waterhole or marsh less than a mile away-and then they'll move off in the exact opposite direction at dusk.

Tonight, Maridadi arbitrarily appointed herself, saying "Then I speak for the position of Lead Huntress tonight," in an even, formal tone. Without any fuss, the other lionesses just looked at her, looked at each other, and nodded in easygoing acceptance.

Then Maridadi padded off to the northeast, her companions trailing along into the transformed blue-white landscape. Uncertain, Jack took one last look at the mammoth stone castle before silently following at the rear. With a three-quarter moon, there was thankfully enough moonlight for him to see by, even without the benefit of fire.

It was still difficult however, for him to see just what exactly was at his blistered feet, rocks that he could trip over or venomous snakes being the writer's most worrisome potential surprises. It was more prudent to let the more experienced, and far better adapted lions go first to lead the blind fella, so to speak. He was amazed to hear that even now, the laughing doves he'd been hearing since their incomprehensible arrival were _still_ uttering their rising strings of coos this long after dark. Did they _ever_ zip their beaks?

A lioness in fluid motion, especially when she's walking free in her native savanna, is a magnificently gorgeous thing to watch. The way her muscles and free-floating shoulder blades arch and slip and coil under her cinnamon-tan pelt, her confident, limber gait, can't help but thrill even the most jaded human observer. And when the lioness in question is strolling along at night, her body and her home painted silver-blue and blue-black by moonbeams and starlight, the sight is nothing short of sublime.

As a pleasantly astounded Jack took in the marvelous sight, Sarabi dropped out from her mid-column position and allowed him to catch her up. Sensing that the lion queen had something to say to him, possibly about the hunt's rules, he listened in patient expectation as they became parallel to each other.

In a sultry whisper, she said, "It should go without saying Jack that we never talk if we can help it on hunts or waste words in catching prey, so these questions will be quick and to the point. First, can you see okay? I know that baboons and other monkeys have quite poor night vision compared to ours, so I assume your eyesight is the same?"

"Yes Your Highness, it is," Jack frankly admitted. "Our night eyesight is nothing to brag about, no matter how many carrots we eat," he smoothly joked with a thin smile. "But there's enough moonlight for me to see fairly well," he assured her.

"It lights the country up like day as far as we and the prey are concerned," Sarabi informed him. (A lion's night vision is six times better than a person's.) "There'll be some clouds coming in though from the east," she reflectively commented, looking at the dark patchwork on that horizon, "which will make it easier for us to stalk but harder for you to see."

Although he didn't like the thought of shuffling along or blindly groping in the dark, much less with panicked, stampeding animals running in all directions-the last time had been plenty frightening and hazardous enough by daylight-there was nothing that could really be done. "I'll need to either stay still or take my chances until the cloud passes," he helplessly shrugged. "Just make sure I don't get bitten by a snake or fall into something."

"We won't. Also Jack, don't take offense at this," Sarabi cautioned him, "but even though you're our guest, we'll be satisfying our own hunger first before instructing you on hunting. Understand that?"

"I don't take any offense at all," Jack responded. "And yes, I can understand that just fine. Maybe I can even get some still badly needed sleep when and while you eat," he volunteered, although the playwright deeply doubted he'd be able to slip into slumber with the sounds of growling, ripping, and crunching bones as his lullaby, especially after he'd too recently heard the same sounds coming from newly-slaughtered humans. Dedicated, jolly Herb Cooper came unpleasantly to mind as the most terrible example.

At least the Aquilasuchus had been quick about it, he bleakly comforted himself, wondering in turn then what Carl was doing this moment back at Skull Island. Had he been as faithless to his good friend and leading lady as a blowing feather and left with Englehorn, writing them off as yet more collateral damage, or was amazingly, loyally waiting and hoping for their return? Did Carl think they were dead? There was no chance of Jack knowing the answer, but despite all the producer had brought about, he suddenly ached to be able to somehow let the man know that his scriptwriter and actress were both alive and okay.

Thankfully, Sarabi helped him to move out of such an unhealthy frame of mind by cutting in to say, "And that leads to a final question Jack, the most important of all. With our strength, we can kill animals our own weight or bigger all by ourselves."

"Yeah, you're kind of famous among our own kind for being able to do that," Jack thoughtfully nodded. "I'm sorry though, go on."

"But from what I see and you told us, as a human you have no sharp fangs or claws, aren't fast on your feet, and carry your weapons in your hands," Sarabi evenly went on. "So what do you think would be the biggest prey you could bring down, or at least would be suitable prey?"

"I'm really not sure. But although I and my ego would love to do something as macho as killing a wildebeest or kudu with my teeth and bare hands, it would be hard enough for me to bump off a sixty-pound Tommy with those and this club," he answered, cheek muscles tightening in a crooked smile of sheepish, resigned amusement as he gestured at the bone with his free hand.

"Well Jack, since you know your capabilities better than anyone, I'll leave the decision of what you think is appropriate prey to you as well," Sarabi dismissively said with a shrug of her powerful shoulders as she started to rejoin her subjects.

"Swell," he said casually. Then a sudden misgiving grabbed him by the spinal column. "Sarabi," he whispered. Turning, she looked at him over her thick shoulder. He gestured with his broad hand and she came closer.

"What is it Jack?" she asked, the faintest trace of irritation in her face and voice.

"If you gals haven't eaten yet," he said, "then I can assume Mufasa hasn't eaten too? If he gets too hungry with Ann around-" he started to fret.

"Remember Bwana Jack," Sarabi said, "you both have our word that no harm will come to either of you. We don't eat our guests. Besides, my royal mate swiped an impala from a group of cheetah brothers earlier today, so he's not desperately hungry by any means."

Reassured, Jack told the lion queen, "That's a comfort to know. Sorry for cutting in."

"That's okay. But again, we need silence from now on." This time, Jack allowed her to rejoin the file without any more interruptions.

They were now slightly over half a mile from their starting point when Maridadi came to a stop and punctually said, "Now we can spread out." With Purupuru taking a position at one end, Deriai at the other, the lionesses formed a ragged front, Simba and Nala playing at the back between the adults and Jack Driscoll.

Night is the time of the lion, and anyone who is around lions at night can often sense how very different their character is as opposed to during the day, even more so when they are actively hunting. Now the lions weren't strolling, they were patrolling, a Greek phalanx of blue-gray phantasms padding along with ears cocked and amber eyes sweeping the grassland. Always a perceptive man, Jack found it both a frightening and primally fascinating thing to witness. He couldn't tell for sure if it was instinctive fear or respect for a master hunter that made him fall even further back. Once in a while, a lioness would squat to urinate, or scuff her hind feet in the dirt, helping to scent mark her pride's territory.

Maybe it was the close presence of the big cats, maybe it was the fact that he was understandably a bit high-strung after Skull Island, but Jack Driscoll felt an amazing awareness of the land around him, one that he'd have never normally conceived as being able to sense. When a tree cricket or katydid shrilled, his straining ears heard it as clearly as if the call had been broadcast over the radio. When they walked through a grove of umbrella acacias, the playwright could've sworn he actually felt the cool night air cool even more by a fraction of a degree. He was very aware of a twig's crack, the hushed rustle of red oat grass stalks. Jack wasn't actually hunting himself yet, just following the lions around, but now he understood what Brian and other hunters meant when they said your senses became like honed knives.

All the same, they couldn't compare to those of the lions. Chauski pricked up her ears then, wordlessly catching everyone's attention as she broke from her position and trotted towards the barest rustle in the grass. The others came as well, as some animal said "Uh-oh"-but without much concern in that feminine voice. Perplexed, Jack approached in turn to see what type of beast the lionesses were now sniffing and pawing at.

It was a bizarre creature-part of Jack was amazed that he could still regard any run-of-the-mill animal as bizarre after Skull Island, but he did-, one he'd seen in illustrations and knew about from his copious reading, but had never seen in the flesh. It was a pangolin tightly rolled up into a ball, the ant and termite-eating mammal relying on its weird armor of artichoke-like greenish scales to protect it. More curious than actually trying to eat the balled-up beast, the lionesses mouthed and gnawed at the living sphere, raking their ivory sickles of claws across the natural mail. Being young, Simba, Nala, and Jaha exhibited the greatest interest in the alien anteater.

There was no possibility of breaking in though, for a pangolin has scales so thick and strong that they can deflect a rifle bullet. She was really more of an interesting toy then a dinner prospect, and Maridadi gave a bored yawn before moving off after only a few minutes. Reluctantly, the cubs left their new toy and followed.

Curious, Jack himself knelt down and picked up the Cape pangolin, the scales feeling like a whole bunch of huge dusty fingernails overlaying the other. Although he seriously doubted that he'd be able to succeed at what a lioness couldn't even do, he still was a strong man and decided to take a crack at uncoiling the animal. Grabbing the top of the tail, Jack pulled with one arm as he used the other to pin the creature against his torso. Several valiant attempts got him nowhere.

Despite the weird appearance, he briefly considered the idea of taking the animal back and eating her. Choy, who would beat his blessed and now sadly silenced gums about any topic of conversation you chose or didn't choose, had told him twice that his people regarded pangolin as both good eating and medicine. But Jack didn't feel like carrying this one around for what could be the entire night, and the writer suspected that the only way he'd be able to kill this animal would be either with an explosive or a pickax.

So he put the Cape pangolin down and trotted to catch up with the lions, leaving the animal to cautiously unroll herself and continue her interrupted wanderings half an hour later. He thought about Ann as the pride continued to stalk along. Was she doing okay with collecting firewood? Did she badly need his help with carrying, an extra set of unfaltering strong arms? How was she doing with collecting reeds and grass for a facsimile of a bed? Despite it's shortcomings, Jack deeply longed for his cot on the Venture again at the thought.

At that, the lionesses all stopped dead in their tracks, catching Jack's attention. Following their gaze, he saw the silvered, vague bushy forms of ostriches, stretched out on the ground in slumber about two hundred yards away, legs folded up under their bodies. Without wasting words, just a mutual sensing and silent agreement, the lionesses all barely nodded, and started to spread apart.

When a lioness stalks in broad daylight, she keeps her belly as low to the dirt as she possibly can, moving forward inch by inch in an agonizing-looking position, trusting the grass to conceal her. Under the cover of darkness though, a lioness moves more upright, her body in a partial crouch, taking bigger steps with her partners closer together. It's all about silence at night, not keeping out of sight.

They were truly getting down to work, as committed to their labors as whenever Jack was struck by an idea for a new act or scene at his desk. It occurred to him that the scene playing out in front of him would make deeply compelling writing in that vein as well.

Although the playwright didn't think the ostriches would see him as threatening, and might well even approach him more closely out of curiosity, Jack Driscoll didn't want to influence the hunt for good or for ill, and so politely lowered his lanky body down to the dirt. Simba and Nala joined him, sitting in Jack's lap while his long fingers distantly stroked their plush coats, everyone's expectant eyes and minds really more focused on the drama before them.

For wild animals, especially large ones that must sleep on the ground and in open country, sleep is not the long, pleasant hours of black unconsciousness that we know as humans. It is snatched in uneasy fits and starts, one part of the brain even then always acting as vigilant watchman. For some reason, perhaps an incautious rustle of grass or movement of pebbles by a tawny paw, that internal watchman woke a cock ostrich.

As Jack watched, one of the darker bushes leapt to its feet on long bare legs, the moonlight reflecting off white wing and tail feathers. The male immediately cut loose with loud booming calls, a thumping _boo-boo-boo-hoo_ exploding out of his scrawny neck. "Lions!!!" the bird unnecessarily added, the rest of his flock vaulting out of the dust and grass and tearing after the ostrich cock into the night.

Lions generally prefer to be within thirty yards of their quarry before attacking. Mbalamwezi, the closest lioness, was a disappointing seventy-five. But that was just the rule of the savanna. Despite the image many of us may have about nature being "red in tooth and claw" usually the prey gets away by the side of a barn door. Just one out of every four lion hunts ends in success.

Knowing that the game was up, the weathered termite mounds in the Rhodes grass became lionesses once more. Not even bothering to chase such fast prey, the silver-mantled cats reconvened, greeting each other with slow head-butts and soft moans, Simba and Nala leaving Jack's lap to get into the bonding themselves.

"Sorry ladies," Jack told them with measured sympathy as he got to his feet and stretched. "Hope you have better luck next time." _And let's hope it comes quick for my sake._

"Ngai willing, it'll come," Chakavu said with a quiet optimism that reminded him so much of Ann's before they carried on.

Like a camp-follower of days gone by, Jack Driscoll again took his place behind the Mzima lionesses, a squadron of feline ghosts in the moonlight. It was the most surreal and yet privileged nighttime walk that he'd ever taken, he reflected, listening to the shrilling, trilling, and chirping of nocturnal frogs and insects. He hoped Ann was enjoying it too, wherever she was. The sooner they were back together again, the better.

Abruptly, the lionesses went dead still then, looking and listening intently at another potential meal. Following the direction of their amber stares once more, Jack saw a herd of another savanna speedster, topi. Built for speed and endurance, topi have high horsy shoulders, deep chests, and long, trim legs. They are also one of the most beautifully patterned of Africa's antelopes, with reddish-brown bodies, a face and upper limbs colored plum purple, and straw yellow lower limbs. Finally and fittingly, they also have a prize horse's luxurious sheen to their coats.

The lions had fortunately found them at a good time, as far as the cats were concerned. Lying down, each member of the herd, which Jack estimated to be thirty-forty strong, was either sleeping or drowsily chewing their cud. There were also a number of mocha-colored calves, the month-old youngsters sleeping at Mother's side.

As before, not wanting to be the hunt's "random factor" Jack carefully sat down in the giant star grass and waited as the lions stalked. The silence was charged, absolute, and Jack Driscoll could hear only the wild pounding of his blood in his ears as the writer watched the lionesses break apart from each other, and then separately stalk in what seemed to be the start of a "pincer movement." The methodical battle tactic held him in rapt fascination, tensing his muscles like cords.

Then, like a curtain lowering across a stage, a mid-sized cloud swept across the moon, totally denying Jack even a shimmer of moonlight to see by. Now there was nothing but blackness! The understanding that he was blinded, alone in the dark with hunting lions and big, muscled antelope that could spook any moment and bowl him over sent a crazy spasm of barely controlled panic to squeeze Jack Driscoll's throat and vibrate down his spine. He almost got to his feet, but forced the anxiety back somehow and stayed put.

Since he was at the back of the lionesses, he reminded himself, it was extremely unlikely that even the most alarmed topi would head in his direction. And even if some stampeded in the writer's direction anyway, staying seated or lying prone would actually be the smartest thing he could do under the circumstances, instead of randomly running around in the dark like a chicken with his head cut off.

So he sat like the cubs in the eerie blackness, waiting for something to get knocked to the ground. Like every man in his trade, Jack Driscoll was now and again afflicted with the curse of writer's block. The times when he'd find himself banging his skull against a mental brick wall or slogging through cerebral tar to reach his goal of just one more printed page, both exasperated him and worse, made him quick-tempered. Thankfully, he had methods of overcoming the barriers.

One of them was to go into a room, turn all the lights off, filter out as much noise as he could, and then just sit and ruminate in the sheltering, silent dark. He'd used the same strategy for inspiration on the Venture many times as well, standing in the engine room and listening to the background noise of the machinery steadily working away. Attentive to the throbbing rhythm of his own red pulse, Jack was hit by the weird, spooky similarity between what he'd do on the boat, and what was unfolding now in the silent bush. He had no clue where the lions were or what they were doing.

Minutes dragged by. Then an explosive snort tore through the cool black nothingness, and a shout of "Oh crap! Lions!!!!" Wildly casting around with just his heightened hearing, Jack heard the pounding of topi hooves coming from all directions, the softer, padded thudding of lioness paws among them.

As the biggest of all African carnivores, and the biggest of all cats save the tiger, African lions can wrestle down and kill practically any animal they choose, except for adult elephants, rhinos, and hippos. Working together in groups naturally expands the menu even further. But this power comes at a price. A lion's muscle weight inevitably slows the cat down, giving it a thumping, flatfooted, fairly awkward type of gait. Combined with a relatively small and inefficient heart, this also means that lions possess less stamina than the cheetah or hyena for example.

Nonetheless, their speed was much faster than anything Jack could even hope to touch, and seven seconds later his ears caught a bleat ripping through the night, then something heavily hitting the grass, then deep growling. Obviously they'd caught something. But what?

With a perplexed frown, Jack blindly, haltingly moved forward, using the growls and sound of running as guidance. At that instant, the cloud slipped away, a rain of moonlight springing out to reveal the unearthly yet gruesome scene. Sarafina had caught a calf by chance in all the commotion.

Now, all the lionesses were falling on the gangly calf, clamping onto the twitching beige form-which Jack realized with horror meant that it was still alive or slipping away. Ears laid back, the cats rent the night air with feral snarls and growls, using their back teeth like shears to bite off pieces of topi calf and chew them.

The lionesses in a pride are generally all relatives. Partners. Friends. All for one and one for all. Stick together like glue-until it's time for dinner. Then a lionesses' behavior can best be summed up in two adjectives: "Grabby" and "Possessive." Sarabi flicked her paw out and cuffed Ndugu across the cheek. Sarafina growled angrily at Nala, getting an indignant swipe with unsheathed claws from her own daughter. Purupuru and Jaha, savagely growling, got into a brief slugfest, the latter left with a cut across her muzzle before they both returned to eating.

Jack was astonished for his part, gaping at both the level of vicious competition and how they'd more or less eaten the calf alive. It was like the leonine version of Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde. "Good blessed Christ!" he half exclaimed to himself. But like with the painted dogs, as long as it didn't involve him, Ann, or other people, it really wasn't his business to judge how the lions behaved, he reminded himself. Sarabi had told him they'd deal with their own hunger first before he could actively hunt. Well, that spectacle sure made Jack happy that he wasn't already carrying meat around.

As the playwright looked on, within ten minutes, the lions made the topi calf do a disappearing act. Then, a dark stain in some flattened grass for the silverbacked jackals to sniff at was all that remained. With the food gone, Jack was both amazed and heartened to see the lionesses, who had been fighting each other tooth and nail for a share, forget about the whole thing entirely and fall to grooming each other, licking the dark, gory stains off each other's faces and necks. Good to see they didn't hold grudges.

The group cleaning didn't take long, and Maridadi drew her huge padded paw across her face before neutrally saying, "It's time to search out more meat Pride Sisters." Stretching limbs muscled like a heavyweight boxer's, the lionesses reformed into their loose crescent as they walked along, Simba and Nala-who still hadn't gotten to eat much of anything-trailing their mothers.

With an awed, respectful appreciation in his torso at the ferocity they'd just displayed, Jack also returned to his nocturnal following of the cat world's panzer division. He was feeling a growing hunger himself now, but the lions had so far hardly taken the edge off theirs. Staring painfully at his watch in the dark, the playwright saw that he'd been out and away from his nymph Ann for slightly over two hours. A Gabon nightjar steadily called with alternating, froglike _churrs_ from a wooded hollow to his right, another bird slurring back in response.

Masega went stock still a minute later, impaling something that Jack as yet couldn't see with his lackluster human vision. Craning forward, the writer saw that she was creeping up on a grazing hare, rigid ears catching the opaline moonlight. A little enviously, it crossed his mind that _this _was the perfect type of quarry for him to subdue and bring back to lay at a touched Ann's feet.

But the hare wasn't going to be feeding anyone. Hearing something suspicious, it stood on its hind legs, sniffed attentively, then lost its nerve and bounded off into the night. Masega gave halfhearted chase after her would-be snack for several yards, then slowed and gave up, shrugging her shoulders in dismissive defeat.

It was plain that prey sure gave the predators the run-around in more ways than one. Lions though, stoically accept whatever luck comes their way, and Masega wordlessly rejoined her companions, giving a few affectionate rubs before everyone, including Jack, picked up on the page where they'd left off.

He was getting truly tired again. Jack fervently hoped, lethargy dissolving into his abused brain, that they'd find and make a big, satisfying kill soon. It wouldn't have helped his spirits in the least to know that all too often, a pride of lions may hunt all night long with nothing substantial to show for it at sunrise. To keep himself occupied and focused, Jack Driscoll listened to the bird and insect music around him, silently humming Fred Astaire's weirdly appropriate and upbeat "Night And Day." It sure seemed like he was living a life over the past few days where those comfortable categories had no meaning anymore.

The lions were coming down an incline into a large hollow with plenty of croton bush, mimosa, and umbrella acacias, making a small thorn tree forest. As they came closer, the trees seemed to somehow grow in the moonlight. It seemed to Jack like a bad spot for snakes, so he uneasily kept out in the open as the lionesses all traveled though the right edge of the wood. Taking one deliberate, picked step after another, he again reunited with the cats.

Another cloud came, robbing Jack of his eyesight for a few weighted minutes as he tensely shuffled along, praying that he wouldn't trip and injure himself. He simply couldn't afford to have that happen. Thankfully, the darkness soon passed, leaving behind a more silvered hue of light to transform and reveal the land. The grass wasn't the only thing it revealed.

Fidgeting and grazing, rich patterns seemingly composed out of the moonbeams and shadows themselves, a herd of sixty or seventy Grant's zebras stood before him. A fair number were asleep as well, striped legs tucked underneath their portly bodies. Among them was a loose cluster of about two dozen impala, relying on the protection of darkness as a safe time to leave the groves and thickets where the sleek two-tone antelope browsed by day. In the African night of course, protection and safety are relative terms.

Chances looked good for his crazy new comrades. The wind was blowing towards the lionesses. Behind the herd was a high hill, a natural cul-de-sac. The grass was fairly long. The animals had no clue they were there. Once more, Jack intently at the cats as they became worn termite mounds in the red oat grass. Splitting up, they deliberately crept forward with lethal focus. The shoulder blades rose, arched, and fell, rose, arched, and fell again. It was something hypnotic and dreamlike all at once.

Keeping his green eyes on the herd, he sat down once more and waited with sheer baited breath. Although lions will eat almost any animal worth bringing down, they generally tend to hunt what they were raised on or to a lesser extent, what is most abundant. All the same, they do have favorite prey species, and zebra is at the very top of that list.

Besides zebra, lions also hugely relish the flesh of domestic donkeys and horses-Jack was fully aware that many a lion has been blasted by a hunter's gun when it succumbed to the fatal, irresistible lure of a donkey carcass. For that matter, Carl had shamelessly told him several times that "It's almost painfully easy to get shots of lions and hyenas Jack. All you need to do is go out and shoot your own zebra, then sit in your hide or car and be patient." Such a delicacy was worth taking all the time you needed in stalking.

Fanning out, the pride slunk forward with an inhumanly slow deliberation, as if on oiled springs. Mbalamwezi slipped away from the others then, slowly moving towards the striped horses at a visible tangent. Impressed, Jack understood that she meant to stampede the herd towards her companions. But the picture sent a shard of glassy fear into the back of his skull. Zebras are big animals after all, weighing several hundred pounds. Their hooves are like sledgehammers, and when they kick or stomp on you, it's definitely hazardous to your health.

The twitching anxiety grew tenfold when about a third of the way through the stalk, another large cloud passed between his eyes and the waning moon, plunging everything into helpless blackness. His blinkers were useless once more. All the playwright could do was stay seated in the darkness, nerves tautly coiled, and then just hope for the best if any animals came his way. It would be a ridiculous irony to survive a stampede of Brontosaurs, huge gray multi-ton bodies falling around him like stone idols, only to later die under the hooves of zebras for God's sake, he knew that much. _When Ann and I get back to New York, _he sardonically thought, _I'm never going to use irony in my writings again._

It was eerie, yet exciting, knowing that the lethal contest between predator and prey was unfolding somewhere out there in the dark. Then, from what Jack took to be the left side of the herd, the electric tension in the air was shattered by a zebra's hysterical _e-ha, e-ha, e-ha!_ Sounding like speeded-up, frantic donkey braying, the rest of the Grant's zebras took up the call and fled, producing a drumroll of hooves even as Jack heard the muffled thuds of the lionesses running at them in the dark. Impala snorted wildly and scattered as well in their terror. And to Jack's horror, the hoof beats of zebra and impala were going in every direction!

Immediately, the writer drew his body into a half-standing stance, not sure if he should stay where he was anymore, run blindly, or where to run to if he did. He resolved only to run or flatten himself out on the ground if an animal was on top of him, close enough for even his weak eyes to detect it in the dark. Chaos reigned and nerves writhed as Jack wildly cast around in the darkness. Three zebras, braying in panic, passed within ten feet of him.

A series of springing impacts came directly towards his squatting form, and Jack Driscoll dove for the dirt, an impala doe leaping through space only two feet above his shoulders, her brown eyes wide with terror. Reflexively, he reached upward and grabbed her hind ankles. For the rest of the night, he never would quite be able to figure out if he'd seized the impala's back legs in an attempt to desperately push her away, as he'd done with the soul-searingly demonic cricket that had attacked Lumpy, or out of some feral impulse to hurl the antelope to the grass and slay her for his meat.

Whatever the intent, Jack himself never found out, for the impala doe gave an impressive kick, freeing herself from the unprepared writer's broad hands and bouncing off into the darkness. At that moment, he heard a squealing yell pierce through all the commotion, then the thud of something that had to be a zebra hitting the ground hard, hard enough to knock the breath out of its lungs.

At least two other lionesses were still chasing something in the dark, a snorting bleat of distress hitting his eardrums as another animal was knocked down. One of the lionesses gathered around the zebra suddenly left her place, ran over to the other two, told them something commandingly-Jack didn't know what or who the speaker was, but it seemed like Sarabi-and one of the two lionesses left with the visitor for the thrashing zebra. Trying to figure all of this out in the dark of night was like trying to find a needle in a haystack of course, but Jack's feverish assumptions were proven correct when the moon returned again to illuminate the scene.

Lying on her stout side, as the playwright jogged forward, occasionally giving a weak bray-squeal of distress, was a zebra mare, pinned to the ground under tawny, growling forms. Purupuru, eyes ablaze, was biting deep into her thick, banded throat and giving a shake now and then to tighten her grip. The other lions were restraining her or already ravenously tearing at the zebra mare's hindquarters, the blood mercifully dark and colorless in the wan light.

As Jack watched in a mixture of fascination and horror and shock and disgust and pity, the life-spark and the intelligence in the glossy eyes of the Grant's mare first dimmed, then blew out to leave only orbs of glass in their stead. Now all the lions could feast to their heart's content, especially a jubilant Simba and Nala.

Ndugu was the only one absent, and the reason was pretty obvious, for she was holding down a live impala stag, a young one with his lyre-shaped horns only half grown. _Why the hell aren't you just killing that poor beast sister_? Jack thought in pure perplexity at her strange actions.

Impatience and real irritability permeating her voice, Ndugu then growled at him, "Come over here Jack. I'm starved and haven't got all night!" Taken aback by her unexpected command and sudden curtness, Jack Driscoll froze in his tracks out of uncertainty for a moment or two before coming forward. Why the lioness felt it was of such importance to have him alongside both her and a live impala was beyond him, but he approached anyway, determined to play this out.

Looking at the thrashing antelope underneath her, he shouted "Why don't you just kill the damn thing Ndugu? Is it a gift or what?"

"In a way, although we'll be the ones eating it," Ndugu gruffly, pointedly replied. "Sarabi told me that this would make an excellent training kill for you though. So I'll prepare him." And before Jack's truly horrified eyes, the lioness shifted her position back a bit, opened her massive jaws, and bit down on the impala's clawed back!

There was a wet, soggy, crunching sound, like when a person treads on an egg, and a disbelieving, nauseated Jack saw the back half of the animal go permanently limp. She'd deliberately broken the young stag's back, and it made him feel profoundly sick inside.

Part of him was shocked that there could still actually be any horror too unspeakable or any violence too harshly brutal for his psyche to handle after Skull Island. He would always remember the awful, muddy thud of the spear hitting Mike's torso, brown on the back half, maroon on the front. The man hadn't even made a sound.

The impala before him though, desperately flopping and thrashing in the dusty grass, was anything but silent, producing loud bleats and worst of all _screaming_ in his terror. The starkly macabre tableau before him was almost exactly like something from the stage of the Grand Guginol, the Parisian theater notorious for its gruesomely naturalistic horror scenes. Jack had gone to a performance there once, and although he knew the actors were "merely" using animal organs and blood for their gory props, it had been just a bit too convincing even for him.

"Go on," Ndugu snapped. "Kill him and be done with it instead of just standing in one place like a tree Jack!" His mind struggled with angry incomprehension at how these animals could normally be so kind and laid-back, yet so cruel, even if they apparently didn't see any wrong in it. Well, if they were going to just stand back themselves, he couldn't let the impala go out like this in such suffering! Marshalling up his resolve, Jack Driscoll crazily thought, _Rise Peter; kill and eat!_

If it had been a man before him, Jack knew for certain he would've gone and gotten help, or stayed with the poor soul until he died. This impala was as smart as a man, and was producing deeply disconcerting human screams and panting. But it still was an animal, and mustering all his disassociation skills, focusing intently on the arbitrary line that separated him and Ann from the beasts in the world he knew, Jack came forward.

Not knowing how he exactly was going to kill the stag, Jack unbuckled his belt and held it with one hand. He'd see if this worked. Grabbing a plunging horn with the other, he swung over at the same moment and drove his knees into the antelope's sleek shoulders. Christ it was strong! An impala's neck is fairly long, forming a gentle S-curve. This allowed Jack room to whip his belt around the animal's neck, slip it though the buckle somehow, and tighten. Reflexively, the playwright flipped onto his bruised side, like a ferret does when killing a rabbit in its burrow, put his feet against the top of the shoulders, and pushed with his whole body.

He had to strain wholeheartedly while keeping the tension up with his arms. A knife would've been so much better, Jack thought once more. But this risky course had to do-did do. The kicking of the young stag, lying on his side, slowed, then stopped. Jack had actually killed a large animal with just his belt! It was a surreal and triumphant feeling all in one, and the writer couldn't help but smile despite everything.

But the sensation of victory was short-lived indeed. A heavy-footed treading came straight for him, multiplied by three. Far behind that was a male lion's aggressive roaring, rapidly engulfing the distance between him and the zebra kill. A startled Jack had just enough time to retrieve his belt before three lionesses, including Sarabi, excitedly, furiously fell on the impala. "Very good Bwana Jack," the bloodied lion queen panted out in hurried respect before tearing into what was technically his own kill.

It wasn't meant to be his from the start. Yet Jack felt an indignant, helpless fury rise up within his chest like a fire as he watched the lions feasting on this new carcass, even considering whipping them with his belt before he took the wiser path of returning it back to his trouser loops. Now he knew how the painted dogs and cheetahs felt when a lion swiped their kill and they could only impotently watch.

The male lion arrived then, a more chiseled, leaner individual than Mufasa, with a matted black mane. Taking no prisoners when it came to assuaging his hunger, he contemptuously snarled, "Out of my way, underling lionesses!" dispersing three or four as he hurled himself onto the zebra carcass and tore into the rich meat, a deep scar over his eye shining white in the moonlight.

Being smaller, Simba and Nala had already devoured their fill, and the cubs were now happily grooming the blood off their forequarters. Mind trying to adjust to everything, Jack asked Simba warily, "Simba, who's that male lion? Is he a nomad?"

Looking up at the writer, jaws stained with crimson gluttony, the lion prince laughed and replied, "Nomad? That's just Uncle Scar Jack. He's pretty weird, but harmless and basically okay. Like you," he playfully added.

Jack gave a distant smirk before asking, "Why did he attack those lionesses and drive them away instead of just asking politely to eat?"

Confused, Simba just cocked his head and said, "Because that's a show of force. It's just something we do and how a male demonstrates his power. Oh man, I can hardly wait until I'm big enough to be able to do that," the cub said in gleeful anticipation, looking with something like admiration at his uncle. Jack knew he shouldn't be judging what he didn't understand, but he shook his angular head, bent down to pick up the bone cudgel, and walked off anyway.

He was totally tired now, having difficulty in keeping his head up. Coming across the weathered body of a tree knocked down by elephants, he put the bone down and stretched out in the space between the two main boughs. Jack could hear the snarling, growling and yowling of the lions rending the night air just a hundred and twenty feet away as the cats feasted and squabbled. Theirs was a world and code of morals he didn't understand at all. Amazingly, Jack Driscoll was able to dismiss it all and sleep in spite of this grisly lullaby, thoughts of a patiently waiting Ann floating through his head.

* * *

Jack was woken by something large and soft gently touching his belly. _The blanket worked its way down my body again,_ he drowsily thought, pulling at the warm object. But since when did a blanket feel velvet soft above and like stiff leather below?

"Jack, we're done eating. Time to hunt now," a feminine voice whispered.

Ann? But why would she want him to get up and hunt in the dark? And what the hell was the point of it in the first place if she'd just eaten anyway? Rolling over, he muttered in annoyance, "Quit talking nonsense Ann and just leave me alone."

"I'm not exactly Ann," the voice said dryly. The pitch and tone was all wrong, huskier and sultrier than Ann's soft, silvery intonations. Although Jack still wanted to sleep, curiosity made him open his green eyes anyhow.

The blood-painted face of a lioness was the first image to greet them. "Holy Christ!" Jack shrieked in pure terror, reflexively kicking the tawny cat in the chest and smashing the heels of both hands into her jaw in an attempt to push her away.

Drawing back, a mortified Jaha frantically waved her paws in an apologetic fit, gabbling out "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry Jack! Ngai help me, I didn't mean to freak you so badly!"

The strange slang term cut through Jack's panic, and he caught his breath as he stood, saying with a cool growl as he stood, "Well, you could've at least gone and taken the time to lick that blood from your face."

"I didn't mean to-or think about it," Jaha said regretfully, hanging her head.

Her demeanor and the fact that it had only been an honest mistake cooled the fire shooting along his nerves, and Jack dismissively exhaled, saying simply, "Well, we all know now. Just don't ever do anything like that again for the sake of my already tortured nerves."

Changing the awkward theme, Jack looked around him, seeing that all eleven lionesses were still present. The zebra and impala were now just reamed-out corpses, sprung ribs gruesomely jabbing up into the air. In a cruder version of a butcher's cleaning procedure, the organ meat and hindquarters from each animal was completely gone, consumed under a welter of muscled bodies. It was starkly impressive to witness the bloody efficiency of a dozen adult lions.

All the cats no longer looked lean and graceful, but like they'd each swallowed a pair of schoolhouse globes. Seeing that the male lion from before was absent, Jack wondered, "Where's Scar?"

"He went away with a zebra haunch in his teeth, to eat it somewhere else in peace I suppose," Masega told him with a yawn. "He does that fairly often. Just one more of those eccentric quirks he shows to the world."

"He looked you over for a few minutes before he left," Simba chipped in. "I'm amazed you didn't hear him walking around and talking."

The idea that a grown male lion, one that he didn't know and apparently was of an erratic nature, had been looking the playwright over as he slept was slightly discomfiting to Jack. But all that told him was that Scar had been curious, nothing more.

"Too bad I wasn't awake," the writer said with a stretch. "I'd have liked to answer Scar's questions personally, tell the fella more about myself and why I'm here, besides getting to know him better in turn. At the very least, I should at least take the time to introduce myself in person to every lion in the pride," Jack said thoughtfully, feeling a little disappointed in himself about his unknowing breach of etiquette.

"Don't worry about it too much," Sarabi assured him. "We answered all the questions he had, and Scar was clearly in some sort of hurry to go elsewhere anyhow."

Although it irritated Jack a bit that the lionesses had been so free with the facts and experiences that he'd revealed to them unhesitatingly, it did also take something of a load off his shoulders, and he responded, "That's good to know. Hopefully I'll be able to have a talk with Scar myself."

"Scar already had a talk with Ann as she and Mufasa were returning to Pride Rock, so he knows about her," Sarafina casually said. It made anxious alarm bells jangle in Jack's brain.

Flashing around he said sharply, "What! He was with Ann? Did he say or do anything bad to her?" Jack asked in as level a tone as he could, acutely aware of how the black-maned lion allegedly had an eccentric nature and had been rather insolent towards the feeding lionesses.

"He certainly didn't harm her physically from what we smelt of him, and Mufasa would never tolerate Scar smart-mouthing guests. Besides, why would he have any quarrel with a woman he'd never met before?" Ndugu told him.

Sighing, Jack ran his fingers through his own black thatch of hair, telling her, "You're correct about that. It's just that I'm so worried all the time after that island now that something'll happen to her. I sure hope that passes."

"We do too," Sarabi comforted. "But you should use this time to seek out some prey of your own now Jack, so you can be by her side again that much sooner. We're going to make our slow way back now, so there should be plenty of opportunities."

He nodded thoughtfully, brushed the grass off his soiled shirt, and bent once more to cup his hand around his weapon. "You'd all better wish me luck," Jack dryly said as he regarded his killing tool, "because I think I'll need it."

"You'll do fine," Chauski stated with a languorous yawn. Optimistically, Jack broke into a walk back towards the Rock of Ages, the lionesses now unhurriedly following _him_ as if he was the star of some leonine version of The Pied Piper. They were all content and satisfied, but the true hunt had only now begun for him. He hoped he too, would have something to show for all this walking by the time he touched the granite castle's base again.

Like in Skull Island's jungles, Jack Driscoll found himself entirely in the moment, so completely aware of every sight and sound around his body. Weak as they were, he knew his senses and instincts were again razor-sharp. It was a rather twisted paradox that back in that green hell, he'd been so attuned to his surroundings because he didn't want to fall victim to a predator, and now he was in this near-trance because he _was _the predator. Stalking equally sentient prey. Yes, his life sure had become awfully funny.

As his long legs worked in the moonlight, Jack coolly analyzed, and then rejected the animals he met, even though they clearly had no fear of a man. Thompson's gazelles-too fast. Python-too dangerous. Wildebeest-too powerful. Roosting guineafowl-attractive, and dissimilar enough from Jack that he could live with killing one, but too high up to hit with a rock. The results were discouraging.

But halfway through the return trip, Jack's ears caught something moving to his right. It was a Cape hare feeding, pale-buff above and white below. And Jack found it both shocking and exciting at how utterly the hare abruptly filled his little universe. The cool night, the frogs, the birds, the insects, even the lions disappeared, leaving just the two of them.

Tightening his grip on the bone club, the playwright stalked forward, a small part of him hoping the hare would run, but a wild, greater part of him passionately hoping it wouldn't. Something old and raw was controlling his actions now.

The hare tensed, pricked up her ears, and looked back at the playwright with her great mahogany eyes. They reminded him of Ann's own intelligent, haunting, thoughtful blue orbs. If a leopard or python had been stalking the hare, she would've immediately broken into wild flight, and Jack fully expected it to happen any moment.

But the animals here were all innocent as daisies of the fact that human beings also killed and ate their fellow creatures. The hare shrugged her shoulders, so humanly, then lowered her head and kept on cropping grass, holding a sideways, puzzled gaze on Jack as he approached.

Like a cannon shot, it drove into Jack the reminder that this hare wasn't one of "them" but almost akin to what the writer viewed as "us." This was very like taking a human life, and Jack Driscoll had witnessed too, too many of those being brutally snuffed out.

He stopped, unable to bear the idea of committing what would fundamentally be murder. But then, totally without his permission, a black, icy cold force grimly leapt into Jack's soul and took over. Instinct and necessity mixed together, jumped behind the wheel, and stomped on the accelerator.

_If I don't do this, Ann and I won't eat_, he savagely told himself as he breathed in. Then, standing only ten feet away from the hare, Jack rushed at her. It doesn't matter if an animal is tame, totally naïve, familiar with people, or stupid as a post. When a much bigger animal starts rapidly moving in its direction at close range, the outcome can't likely be a good one.

Automatically, the Cape hare flashed around and started running for her life. As he ran after, Jack felt himself go into a wild, misty, brief sort of state. It was something very like the famed "fog of war." Whatever this was, it came to a literal crashing halt when the writer deliberately dropped to his knees, reached out with the club, as if it was an extension of his own limb bones, and knocked the hare off her feet with an underhanded swipe.

His quarry gave a piercing screech, tumbling head over heels as Jack arose, tightened his grip, and brought the end down across the hare's braincase. The hare screamed once more, and Jack hit her a second time, as much to stop the psychological anguish it was causing him as to end her physical suffering.

Jack knew that this blow had finished her. He braced himself for words and expressions of hate or despairing terror. But all he saw was a resigned, almost dignified acceptance come into the hare's great eyes before the flame in them winked out.

Jack Driscoll was exhilarated. No, he was ecstatic! This was _his _kill, _his _fairly won victory! _His_!! Now he and Ann could eat, and this playwright was well on the way to being a reliable hunter! Self-congratulation rushed through his central nervous system like a slug of brandy.

And he was terribly grateful. Grateful that they'd have meat tonight and that Ann would hopefully be grateful to her lover for bringing it back. Grateful to the hare for coming his way, and for someone out there, God, the savanna, Africa, the universe, the still night, the lions, or whatever, for bestowing this on him. It wasn't anything like the thankful gratitude Jack felt at having Ann alive and at his side once more, but it didn't make the feeling any less real.

Then the codes of Jack's civilized world and the ramifications of what he'd just done came back to punish him, so harshly and headily. Jack had never deliberately killed or wanted to kill any beast or bird in his life. He'd shot at the ape and gunned down an Aquilasuchus on Skull Island, but those actions been done out of self-preservation. This hare had posed no threat to him or Ann in the least, just happily going about her life. And he'd just gone and violently cut it short.

Suddenly, he wondered how he could feel elated, and devastated at the same time. Jesus, it looked so limp and pathetic! _What have I just done?_ He realized with a remorseful terror that he'd acted, right down to a tee, no better than the pierced savages that had nearly murdered him in the exact same way. It was a sickening thought, and Jack Driscoll desperately wished then that he could somehow bring the hare to life again. But he couldn't. The action was irreversible, and the harsh truth was that he'd better get used to doing this. No wonder some said that hunting wasn't only a participatory sport; it was a very ambivalent type of sport as well.

Breathing deeply, the intellectual, thoughtful part of his mind took command, and he picked the hare up by the hind legs, testing the weight. She probably weighed about five pounds, Jack judged. There was still a considerable amount of that five pounds he or Ann wouldn't eat unless urgently hungry, he knew. So he'd need to kill at least one more animal on the way back.

The lions praised him for their part. "Nice catch Jack!" Sarafina cheered.

"All the hares should better watch out for my friend now," Simba declared with comic firmness.

"You're on the fast track to being a real predator!" Masega laughed.

"Oh, Ann will be so pleased," Ndugu warmly smiled.

"First time I've ever seen any creature use an inanimate object to kill prey," a wowed Mbalamwezi told Purupuru. "So clever you are," Mbalamwezi directly told the playwright.

"Thanks for the compliments," Jack told them, giving an uncertain half smile. "And yes, I'm sure that my treasured dame will love this hare too." Holding the hare by the back legs in one hand, Jack picked his instrument of death off the grass in the other and resumed his walk back, very aware of the furry form being pulled at by gravity.

The new route the pride was taking back went by the waterhole. The only animals Jack saw before then that he'd likely have been able to take were a civet and a springhare. Choy had told him before that civets were quite edible, but Jack as yet didn't feel like eating the musky-smelling carnivore galumphing through the grass.

Springhares were a more appealing choice, but the presence of the lions had caused the huge gerbil-like rodents to race to their burrows and leap in. The cats had backed off sheepishly, and Jack waited a little while for the animals to come out. Two of them did, but they were anxious, feeding so close to their holes that it would've been pointless for him to even try his luck, no matter how naïve the rodents were. They reminded him very much of the jumping creatures that Dr. Moreau would make out of the Beast Men's children in H. G. Wells' story, only much cuter and furrier.

Now the waterhole spread out again before the writer, silver light dancing across its surface, the gentle, methodical crunching of grazing hippos and a deafening, trilling chorus of frogs filling his ears. He took a welcome drink first before standing and assessing the possibilities. There were plenty of birds here, but a club would be useless for hunting them. He'd need to rely on a stone instead, and get in close.

Picking up a suitable chunk of black granite, Jack carefully strode into the reed bed. There were ducks and Egyptian geese bobbing on the surface in rafts as they slept. But even closer, and most importantly standing in shallow water that he could wade through, was a slumbering covey of greater flamingos, heads tucked under their wings in the manner of geese as the rose-colored birds comically stood on one leg. An exotic choice of poultry to be sure, perhaps even an absurd and laughable one. But the fact remained that they were big birds, and like Tarzan, Jack was willing to take his meat at face value, no matter what the species.

In the haunting moonlight, he rushed forward again, water splashing coldly around and over his feet. Breaking into alarmed, deep chesty honks, the flock burst into action as he closed. Flamingos are large birds, and so have to run for a distance in order to take flight. The playwright had caught them by surprise, and had longer legs. In one swift, controlled motion, Jack threw the stone as he ran, squarely striking a bird at the rear.

A gangly pink mixture of legs and neck, the flamingo was knocked off its feet and into the water, sending out bursts of silver water as it impacted, then wildly thrashed and wallowed in the water as the impala had done in the dust. Before the stricken bird could recover, Jack was on top of it. He lunged forward, seizing the flamingo's neck and immediately dunking the crescent-shaped head underwater, using the water as his killing weapon.

Flamingos are delicate, fairly fragile birds. They don't struggle much when taken by predators, and Jack got the impression that the sheer shock had played just as much a role in his catch's demise as the quicksilver death he'd forced it's lungs to accept. Still holding the bird by the neck, he raised the dripping greater flamingo from the water and carried it back to dry land, a crystal rain pattering in his wake.

Once there, he excitedly regarded it in the same way he'd done the hare. Now he and Ann could each have full meals! Jack felt even more pleased, joyful at how he, a total greenhorn at hunting, had nevertheless made _two_ successful kills tonight-and with only his hands and crude weapons at that!

Oddly, he didn't feel quite as bad as he had the first time. Did that mean he was getting used to it this quickly, becoming colder about it? Or was that because this was a "mere" bird, farther away from him on the Great Chain of Being than a hare was? Both possibilities were disturbing to consider, and Jack decided uneasily that he didn't want to touch them right now. He had far too many disturbing things to mull over already, for the rest of his life.

The lionesses gave their regards and praises again, while Jack shook and pressed as much water out of the pink feathers as he could. Then he slung the damp flamingo over his right shoulder, keeping it steady with that hand while he clutched both the bone club and the hare's soft back legs with the other.

Pride increasing with every step, and excited to see his sweetheart's reaction, he jogged up the game trail with the sluggish lionesses to the castle of Pride Rock. To his delight, the playwright saw an even stronger glow from above than the faint one he'd left behind. Ann had played her role in spades, and as he got closer to the base, Jack heard the chiming laughter filtering down from above, Mufasa's warm base acting as amused counterpoint. It heartened and relived him to know that the two were getting on so well, and he dared to believe that everything truly was fine.

His good spirits led to an impish impulse. He decided to give Ann a surprise. Turning, he told the eagerly approaching lionesses, ready to rejoin their king and jump to dreamland for the rest of the night, "No one say anything right now or climb up yet. I'm going to count to ten, and then I'd like you to all just roar. That'll get Ann's attention in a big way," he lopsidedly smirked.

"Sure," Sarabi drowsily said.

"That's the same kind of trick I'd go and play," Simba said in wicked admiration.

Jack climbed halfway up the stairs, then whispered as softly as possible, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!"

"HHHHRRRROOOOMMMMPPPPHHHHH!!!!" the lionesses all roared out.

From above, Jack heard Ann give a small shriek of pure shock and leap to her feet, a roused Mufasa demanding "Who is that?" As the writer gleefully grinned, Mufasa's blocky, deep face appeared over the edge, followed by Ann's pale, angelic one.

Jack flashed his teeth, then announced, "Ann honey, I'm home!! And I've brought home the bacon too," he said, proudly holding up the hare and flamingo.

Putting her hand on her narrow chest, Ann breathed a few times. She regarded both Jack and his catch with surprised, impressed interest. Then her eyes narrowed slightly and an irritated edge came to her normally melodic voice as she rebuked, "It's nice to see you show a sense of humor Jack. But don't ever show it to me in that way again."

Giving a smug crooked grin of both amusement and apology, Jack told the woman looking down at him, "Okay doll, if you say so. Ready for some dinner now? I didn't know which course you wanted, so I bagged them both."

"How generous of you Jack! Come up and I'll help get it ready," Ann smoothly giggled. As he good-naturedly carried his burden upwards, an inwardly and outwardly exultant Jack almost felt close to a king himself. He'd done his duty splendidly, and all felt right in this strange world.

* * *

As before, a warm thanks to RebeccaAnn, marinawings, Maran Zelde, and Unlimited Shadow. 


	16. An Encounter With Scar

Talk about a roundabout style of writing! As some of you readers may know, I've had a lot of difficulty with Scar in this crossover. Not only was it challenging to pin down his character, it was a chore to determine where he should make his first appearance and how he should interact with our heroes in a beliveable manner. Until now, I dealt with the issue in my customary way-by putting it off until later and being lazy. Delay, delay, delay. Finally though, I've put my nose to the grindstone and dare I say nailed our lion villan's character here quite nicely.

As before, thanks to my reviewers, both old and new. It's not just new reviews, but new penames that also make my week.

* * *

_From his claw one can tell a lion. _Latin proverb.

"_I had else been perfect, whole as the marble, founded as the rock, as broad and unconfined as the casing air; But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in to saucy doubts and fears_." Act III, Macbeth.

"_Nevertheless, I do hate him, and what's more, I'm afraid of him_…" Mara: Daughter of the Nile, Eloise Jarvis McGraw, 1953.

The moon's light both transformed and magnified whatever it touched in the open wood, flooding the open ground like water and stabbing through the leafy crowns like silver needles as Ann worked at collecting firewood. Enhanced by the calls of the night insects and frogs in the branches above her, it was something she found to be both awe-inspiring and quietly ethereal.

For the moment however, as Mufasa lay a dozen feet away in a relaxed sprawl, ready to assist, warm, or defend her as needed, the actress was far more focused on listening to the wisdom Mbili was imparting to her as the fruit bat hung from a branch four feet above her head. Half an hour before, as she and the lion king were beginning to set out on what was their fourth firewood collecting expedition of the night, the Egyptian fruit bat had suddenly shown up to provide his king with a "debriefing."

Ann had listened only distantly while Mbili reported various goings-on among the animals, such as that some leopardess named Uzuri had successfully killed a wildebeest yearling, some black rhino bull called Abasi had taken over Dajan's territory and "sent him off on his bike" as her father would've said in his British slang, Bimbaya the young crocodile had made up her mind to settle down with Dhoruba and join the ranks of his ladies, and so forth. All of it was more or less irrelevant as far as she was concerned, except for the comforting news that all of the hyenas were laying low and sticking to the Graveyard, everyone agreeing that Mufasa's show of force had obviously impressed them.

When the report was done, Mufasa had asked Mbili if the bat wanted to stay with them and provide Ann with pertinent information about the Pridelands, the Mzima pride's neighbors, and how the land itself changed from season to season. Remembering the sycamore figs and wild custard apples she and Jack had eaten earlier that day, she'd politely cut in to ask the bat if he could tell her what he knew about the fruits and edible plants around here as well. Since humans can safely eat basically the same kinds of fruits, nectars, and other plant products as Egyptian fruit bats do, Mbili's knowledge about where reliable sources of these foods could likely be found and recognized as such was especially crucial for her brain to absorb.

Currently, as Ann bent down once more to pick up yet another dead branch and transfer it to the bundle she held in the crook of her left arm, he was informing her about the Mzima Pride's neighbors. "And over _there_," the bat said in his pleasing squeaks, gesturing to the northwest with his hook of a wingclaw, "is the Python Ridge pride. Their ruler is called Muruthi, and his brother is Anasa. His queen is Damisi, and there are five lionesses in the pride in addition to-"

All of a sudden, Mbili halted his steady flow of words and tensed his brown ears, looking at something over her left shoulder. Mufasa did the same, turning his massive head and rising to his feet. Now Ann could hear padded paws hitting the fallen leaves in a slow staccato rhythm as she put down her burden and started to swivel on her hip.

She could discern that it was another lion trotting into the wooded hollow, and assumed that their visitor was one of the lionesses, perhaps Sarabi come to invite her mate to the fruits of a successful hunt. But this lion she saw approaching her was an unfamiliar male.

With a reassuring lack of concern, Mufasa said "Hello Scar," by way of greeting as the other male came to a stop before them. "Ann, this is Scar, my brother," the lion king added by way of introduction. _It fits you well,_ Ann thought, her attention caught by the sickle-shaped scar straddling the big cat's left eye, shining white from the moonbeams.

"I'm Ann Darrow. Nice to meet you," Ann half-mechanically told him even as she sized the other lion up. It struck her that Scar bore a striking physical resemblance to what Jack might well look like if converted to leonine form. Although a mature male, Scar's frame was rangier and thinner than Mufasa's, with more chiseled features and a mane that was matted and black as opposed to his brother's fuller, ginger red one. And although the darkness made it difficult to tell for certain, it seemed like Scar's coat was a slightly darker shade of brown as well, and his eyes probably green in color-when her glance could comfortably meet them.

For Ann had learned through bitter experience that someone's eyes, especially when they were at ease, told volumes about their character. And if Scar shared a lot of physical attributes with Jack, his gaze, not relaxed and soulful, but penetrating and sinister, told her that this lion's spiritual character was as different from her writer's as black was from white. Most unnerving of all was the calculating, fixed sneer he wore on his face as he regarded her in reciprocation, a spitting image of the visages of the colossal reptiles. And it made Ann Darrow feel butterflies inside her stomach.

Giving a smile that seemed to her a little insincere, Scar gave a quick nod as he replied in a sleek, composed yet slightly saucy voice, "And a pleasure to meet you too Ann. I must say, you're the first of your kind that I've ever had the _joy_ of seeing. But I thought there were two of you?" he asked in perplexity, putting a paw to his chin as he looked around the hollow.

A brief flicker of suspicion leapt up within Ann's breast. "How do you know that there are two of us?"

"Why, I heard it through the bush grapevine," Scar replied with a disarming smile. "You've created quite a-stir by your presence, after all." Something about his pause seemed weighted.

"Ann and Jack are going to be staying with us at Pride Rock for a while, and they're going to learn about how to survive out here," Mbili chipped in.

Scar briefly glanced upwards at the fruit bat with glittering eyes, then at the bundle of sticks at Ann's feet. "How does a bunch of sticks have anything to do with that?" he snorted in a slightly scornful tone.

Coolly, Mufasa informed his brother, "They're to feed to the fire that they have going as we speak Scar."

"And we need that fire to keep warm and safe," Ann added as she moved five yards away to reach up and tug at a dead fever tree branch. Even using all the weight of her slender body for leverage, she couldn't snap it. "Mufasa, I need your muscle on this one too please," she said in request.

"Certainly. Just stand back as always," the lion king acceded, cantering over to leap up at the dead branch and break it off with a cracking, explosive blow from his massive paw as she drew back, the sound rending the cool, moon-silvered night.

"Ah," Scar interjected, a delighted, smug sneer on his features, "who knew that my big brother, all high-and-mighty and _better_ than everyone else, would ever stoop to playing the servant for another creature."

"I'm a woman, not a cre-" Ann began to say in indignant response before Mufasa interrupted her.

Giving his brother a direct stare, as lions will do in a mild threat, the lion king curtly told him, "Scar, being king involves being the servant of others every bit as much, if not more so, than serving yourself. And don't show insolence in front of guests."

Miffed, Scar growled in anger as he locked eyes with Mufasa, and Ann began to back away, fully expecting a fight between the brothers. Then, quite unexpectedly, Scar shrugged it all off and took on a devil-may-care demeanor. Relieved, it occurred to her that this was something that probably happened often between the two brothers.

Turning to her again, Scar smoothly said, "Let's hope that you'll obtain adequate amounts of wood for your fire. But do tell me, why isn't Jack by your side as well Ann?" he enquired. Something in the way his ears lay, his lightly curled lips, eager, flashing eyes, and the clipped way in which he said her lover's name made reluctance ooze out into the pit of her stomach.

"That's…because…he's…out…" she mumbled lamely, staring at her reed shoes.

"He's out with the lionesses right now, learning about how to hunt for himself," Mbili innocently finished. The fruit bat was just being helpful, stepping in for Ann after her will had sagged. Yet the vaudeville actress couldn't avoid staring at him for several seconds with the sick, shocked expression one might give to a turncoat who they'd trusted with crucial secrets. _You dumb cluck_, a part of her thought in disgust before being squelched.

"Quite interesting. Hopefully it'll go easily enough for him and he won't be gored by a buffalo, envenomated by a cobra, or meet some other thoroughly _miserable_ fate like that," Scar commented as he turned his eyes away from her for a few seconds, something venomous seeming to tint his voice.

"Oh my goodness, I sure hope not," Ann said, giving a brief shudder at the very possibility.

"Don't fret yourself Ann," Mufasa reassured her as he floated to her side. "The lionesses will take just as good care of him as I am of you right now."

"And that generates a titillating query in itself," Scar said with an air of nonchalant curiosity. "What pray tell, is the motivation behind all this furious attention and tending to our _special_ human company brother?"

"You actually don't know even this late at night Scar?" a mildly stunned Mufasa said.

"No I don't," Scar replied, shrugging his lean arched shoulders in helpless ignorance. "Since I'm not and _never will_ be king," he pointedly hissed, "I don't have a pair of majordomos to break all the day's news to me that's fit to print," looking up at Mbili with eyes that projected envy.

"Um, Ann, Mufasa, I think I'm hungry again and would like to have some more figs," the Egyptian fruit bat said in a discomfited, harried tone. Ann was positive that the lion king knew as well as she did that Mbili was really just foxing to get away from Scar, but Mufasa conceded with a regal nod. "See you in about an hour Ann," was all that the flying mammal spat out before dropping from his tree branch and flapping off into the night on leathery sails of wings.

_Take me with you,_ a small, nervous part of her dryly thought.

"To make a long story short, Simba got himself and Nala in a lot of serious trouble today by making a little jaunt into the Elephant Graveyard," Mufasa divulged.

Assuming a look of theatrical horror, Scar gasped, "The Graveyard? Dear Ngai's sake, no! All those hyenas…"

"Exactly. And they attacked them," Mufasa said gravely. "Thankfully Ann and Jack fought off the three hyenas that came after the cubs until I arrived and taught those scoundrels a lesson."

"And he absolutely did," Ann concurred, the impressive memory replaying in her head.

"How fortunate," Scar muttered in a tone that for someone who'd almost lost a nephew seemed oddly deadpan in nature. "It stands to reason that as a male Jack must've instigated the whole rescue, and barged onto those three hyenas himself I suppose."

A thin smile of nervous pride tensing her features, Ann hesitantly corrected, "Actually, I was the one who saw the danger to the cubs and felt action had to be taken. I kind of had to almost persuade Jack, drag him into it to a degree."

Scar's reaction was immediate, and terrifying. Where the expression in his eyes and on his face had merely been crafty, arrogant, and sinister, like a flash it turned into something filled with rage and accusing malevolence. His venomous gaze, seeming to wish death on her in myriad unimaginable ways, bored through Ann's widening eyes and into her soul like the ranting witch-hag's had, making her gasp as a spasm of fear rushed through her bowels. Even as he held her vision prisoner, Scar dropped his head between his forelegs and thrust his angular sleek head forward, quivering as his lips curled and he gave a gruff cough.

Mufasa gave a roar of fury at the gesture, rushing forward to snarl right in his brother's face, "What in the Black Fire Desert are you doing by **_threatening_** a guest of ours for no reason at all? Answer me Scar, or I'll beat you, Ngai help me!!"

Taken aback, Scar went down into a standing crouch in the face of his brother's rage, managing to keep an emerald eye locked with Ann's even while he said through gritted teeth, "I would do nothing of the sort, Your _Majesty_. The thought of those hyenas harming my nephew and his friend made me so angry that I couldn't refrain from expressing it, and Ann here just happened to be in front of me when I did."

Even though Mufasa seemed to be partly appeased by the placating words, Ann knew, heart thumping, that Scar was quite literally lying through his very sharp teeth. Without knowing why, she frantically babbled in her own defense, "But if Jack hadn't made the decision to go save them as well and stood behind me all the way, I never would've had the courage to go in there all by myself. The cubs would've been dead and I'd still be trying to coax him to it in the meantime." Instantly, Ann felt like an infernal coward for saying such a thing, despite her sense that she'd just been waist-deep in yet another serious "lesser of two evils," situation.

As if a switch had been flipped, Scar's demeanor changed once more to merely haughty. Standing erect and stepping back a few feet from his brother, he gave her a coyote's smile as he placidly inquired, "So even though you recognized the danger, Jack was the muscle, the support, and really the whole reason why your heroic feat came off. Am I correct Ann?"

"Yeah," she panted, still badly shaken by the barely concealed fury he'd just shown towards her. There was little doubt in her quaking mind that if Mufasa's solid presence hadn't been here just now, Scar's daggers of fangs would already have met in her sleek pale throat before any protest-or had that been a shameful version of "I didn't do it"?-could come out of it.

"We owe a lot to them," Mufasa said in simple gratitude. "Simba can tell you all about how Jack gave the hyenas a nice thrashing even before I showed up," he mentioned while giving Ann a smile that expressed his pride about the writer's fighting skills and reflected her own.

"He did an impressive job of badmouthing them too," Ann remarked, giving a weak smile at the recollection despite her fear.

Scar languorously stretched out and yawned, showing his massive teeth and five pairs of intimidating foreclaws. Uncomfortably, Ann wondered if it was a display of weaponry meant to cow her. "How _terribly _exciting," the lion said after he'd done, part of Ann sensing a vague sort of gravity to his tone. "In fact, I believe I'll go seek out Simba right now so I can hear it from his own mouth, and most of all give my warmest regards to Jack," half hissing the writer's name.

His behavior made Ann Darrow inwardly agitated on her paramour's behalf. _Could Scar actually be sore at Jack for some reason? But how could that be possible if they've never met? _

"You're taking leave of us then I presume?" she inquired, lightly biting her lip in concern as something tensed the muscles between her shoulder blades. Abruptly, she found herself caught between wanting Scar to just get as far away from her as he could, and desperately wanting him to stay right where he was.

The conflicting desires made a viscous lump form in her throat and a churning, wild feeling command the hollow of her stomach. Ann opened her mouth to say something to Scar, but his penetrating eyes and a lack of anything meaningful to utter made her close it again in defeat as the lion dismissively parted from his brother.

Disgusted by her weakness, she decided to pluck up her courage once more and try to obtain at least _some _type of window into Scar's nature, however imperfect. "Um Mufasa, could you break off that branch over there?" she sweetly asked, pointing randomly at an umbrella acacia.

Falling for the pretense, the lion king responded "Gladly," before obeying the request.

Scar stopped for a few moments to watch, a pleased smirk on his face. Inhaling deeply to fortify herself, Ann Darrow went up to him and forced herself to meet his gaze. As fearlessly as she had done when defying Kong, and in the same steely pitch, she asked him, "You act like almost like you have a beef with us being here. Is there something wrong by any chance Scar?"

Totally nonplussed, Scar gave her a disturbing, yet disarming smile before coolly saying, "Not in the least Ann Darrow. But as for something being wrong, that frankly could well be the case. If so, it's a dreadful pity that none of us know exactly what it is," he remarked, turning away from her to trot, then canter, off into the night.

His cryptic statement left her deeply puzzled and unsettled. By the time she returned to where Mufasa was patiently standing over the old branch he'd snapped from it's trunk, Ann Darrow had a sneaking suspicion that her life-and primarily Jack's-had just been threatened. Only the knowledge that the lionesses were more than capable of repelling an attack by Scar allowed her to breathe easy and continue to collect firewood.

"So, what do you think of Scar now that you've met him Ann?" Mufasa asked through the chirping of the tree crickets and katydids.

The paranoid little voice in her psyche silently, grimly replied, _I think we should all be watching our backs. _

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At the risk of sounding like a broken record, please read and review!


	17. Cooking, Cutting, and Conversation

**Look who's back again! After an unacceptable amount of procrastinating, I've finally gotten off my behind and completed another chapter! In a nutshell, this is basically more of Jack and Ann bonding with the lions and adapting to life at Pride Rock. Jack also pleasantly becomes a bit less dour, cracks his shell a little in this chapter. Hope you like. As always, a warm shout-out to RebeccaAnn, marinawings, Maran Zelde, and Madonna's Cat for their encouraging and uplifting reviews.**

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_"His voice was a tympanic resonance, so rich and overpowering that it could give an air of verse to a recipe for stewed hare."_ John McPhee.

_"Until the end of the last Ice Age around 11,000 B.C., all humans on all continents were still living as Stone Age hunter/gatherers." _Jared Diamond, _Guns, Germs, and Steel._

On reaching the flat surface of the granite spur, Jack moved a few feet to his right, partly to politely allow the drowsy lionesses to file past, partly in order to inspect the magnificent, crackling campfire Ann had built in the mouth of the smaller cave. The firelight glowed warmly on her pale features, as well as the great blocky ones of Mufasa as they sat on either side and looked at him approaching.

Apparently in awe of so much fire in one location, each lioness lethargically yet very cautiously padded forward until she felt the heat. At that, she would instantly draw back with a nervous growl, and look at the flames in complete perplexity. Then, one by one, each meat-drugged lioness decided they were safely under control and unceremoniously either flopped down right where she was standing, listening disinterestedly to the talk while pondering this phenomenon, or went straight into the cave to call it a night.

"What do you think of it Jack?" Ann asked him with a thin, pleased smile after the pride had come together.

" Think of it? I think that is one swell fire you've made Ann. Great work darling," the impressed writer responded in an appreciative tone.

"There's firewood too," Ann added, proudly turning and pointing to an assortment of dead branches and sticks piled against the left wall of the cave, about ten feet in. "Mufasa helped with breaking them off for me. He can break branches as thick as your arm with one blow Jack!"

"Thanks for helping her Your Majesty," Jack said to Mufasa as the lion king gave a thin smile of acknowledging modesty. "I appreciate that a lot."

"It was nothing," Mufasa responded with a gallant paw flick. "I had to go up a few trees and make myself look a bit awkward in order to reach some of those branches, but that was okay."

"Did you have to make many trips?" Jack asked Ann, gratefully squatting down by the fire to warm his body after hours of walking around in the cool night air. "And was there a lot of carrying to do?"

"I think we made eight trips, didn't we?" Ann guessed, looking thoughtfully at Mufasa.

"Ten actually," Mufasa replied, correcting her in his gentle baritone.

"Holy smoke," Jack said. "That's quite a few." Maybe it would've been better if he'd stuck to his guns after all and hunted tomorrow night instead.

"Yes it was, but thankfully we didn't have to go all that far away from Pride Rock," Ann informed him. "It was more in carrying what we could back-"

"I'm sorry, but _we_?" Jack said in confusion, holding a finger up for brief silence. "You helped carry firewood back too, Your Majesty?"

"That's right," Mufasa replied. "It took a few tries to get a handle on it, but I figured it out soon enough and carried the heavier stuff in my mouth while Ann carried the lighter stuff herself. You see son, you can teach an old lion new tricks," he turned to say to Simba, making his son and guests laugh. Jack felt good inside somehow to know that the lion had been making sure that Ann hadn't been struggling or overexerting herself. What a grand creature.

"Aw, I'll carry sticks for her anytime she wants Dad," the lion prince remarked in teasing chivalry. When the amusement had died down, the pleased playwright said to both Ann and the lion king, "Well, its swell to hear that you both got on so nicely. I really thought I was off my rocker to be deliberately leaving you alone with him," he admitted to his dame while looking at Mufasa, "but we've all become one big happy and honorable family here at the castle, haven't we?" Jack said with a playful crooked grin.

"Yes, we absolutely have," Ann agreed with a fervent, satisfied happiness, petting and rubbing Mufasa's great shoulder with one hand, stroking an ecstatic Simba with the other as he batted at her slender forearm.

"If we're all one big family, can I call you my aunt now Ann, just like Ndugu? Please?" Simba humorously teased, making a smirk rise on Jack's face and generating light chuckles. Jack suddenly noticed then, for some reason, that the lower edge of Ann's slip was now even more visibly ragged and torn than before.

Sensing the direction of his gaze, Ann nervously shifted a bit and told him with frank softness, "We often had to go into some thorn forests and brush to get wood Jack, and it's really working over the clothing I have left, isn't it? Soon I probably won't have enough fabric on me to dress a penny doll," she predicted, casting her eyes downwards.

Feeling his cheeks heating up from a source besides the fire at the thought of Ann nude, Jack lightheartedly joked, "Well, if and when that happens, you could always do what Peter Pan did and go make yourself a costume out of leaves, spider silk, and cobwebs," giving her a lopsided grin. "And there's plenty of thorns to use as needles."

"I could, couldn't I? I know how to sew at least," Ann giggled. "Or maybe make something out of reeds, at least partly." Then a look of delighted excitement flashed across her face, her great blue eyes expanding as she sprang to her feet, crying, "That reminds me! Come look at _our_ bed Jack, just over there deeper in the cave."

Jack arose and followed her around the side of the fire, eyes probing the half-darkness as he trotted into the cave mouth. Two-thirds of the way in, where only hours before there had been bare stone, was a huge sort of ten-foot long pad of reeds and long grass reaching from one wall to the other. It was a crude, slapped-together thing to be frank; nothing at all like the "real beds" Jack had spent his entire life sleeping in-until now.

However, those who are truly exhausted and/or are traveling in unfamiliar country quickly come to learn that they can't afford to be fussy about their sleeping quarters, and this grass mattress looked almost luxurious from where Jack currently stood, literally and metaphorically.

His heart filled with both amazement and pride like it was a pitcher, and Jack Driscoll turned to an expectantly waiting Ann, happily telling her with an approving smile, "Nicely done, my favorite dame. Very nicely done." Blue eyes shining, Ann joyously half-embraced him in a gesture of thanks, resting the side of her head against his collarbone.

"Well, I'm always happy to help add a woman's civilizing touch, just like Wendy did for the Lost Boys," she playfully said to his chest as Ann rolled her eyes up to meet his own. Then Jack saw a thought hit her, and pulling back, Ann half-jokingly said, "Say Jack, as long as we're talking about Peter Pan here, it looks like you've been emulating John Darling and killing some flamingos. How about I help you by plucking the bird and feathering the nest somewhat?"

"Sounds great to me," he agreed, giving a light chuckle and feeling the muscles in his mouth corners tense in mirth. "As for the hare, I'll clean that out myself. It's just too bad I didn't know we were going to be staying here or what exactly I was going to kill, otherwise I'd have brought a frying pan and all the ingredients we need to make a nice batch of hasenpfeffer."

Ann looked at him in puzzlement. "I really don't know what that dish is. Sounds German though."

"It's stew. Rabbit stew." Jack clarified as he walked back to where the night's trophies lay and bent to pick up the Cape hare by the nape. "Both my Uncle Charlie and I just completely adore the stuff. And have you ever had it with Irish pumpkin stew as a course too? It's virtually like being in stew paradise," he said in enthusiastic nostalgia.

"I actually haven't eaten any red meat for a long time," Ann wishfully sighed. "But I'm sure this hare will taste just fine roasted over a campfire too."

Her comment made a wisp of soft regret flicker across Jack's soul. _When we get back to New York,_ he thought, _I'll make sure you get to eat as much red meat as you please Ann._

"I hope that it does," Jack said. "I'm kind of at a loss about how I'm going to clean it without a knife though, to say nothing of that flamingo. Almost makes me wish our dog friends were here to chew the meat to shreds and cough it up like before. Almost being the operative word of course," he smirked.

"I cannot believe you did that and accepted food from those skinny vagabonds," Purupuru muttered.

Jack looked at her sharply, icily saying as his forehead skin tightened, "Those skinny vagabonds are our good frie-"

"Don't make a fuss over it Jack," Mufasa said with calm authority. "And remember Purupuru, even if we don't take a liking to them, any creatures who are friends of our friends are every bit as welcome and worthy of our respect."

"I apologize Your Majesty," the lioness conceded, and the matter was forgotten.

"That's fine," the placated writer said, turning back to the hare. Jack Driscoll was a man who wasn't exactly all that fond of sticking his long fingers into gory messes, and what he'd seen over the past three days had only served to make that aversion all the stronger. There was nothing like seeing your fellow men repeatedly and brutally being slaughtered before your eyes to make a man never look at raw meat and shed blood quite the same way again.

But he'd have to come to terms with doing this, just like with the concept of killing other animals for his and Ann's dinner. Taking a deep breath to steel his stomach, Jack muttered, "Well, here goes nothing," before he grasped the skin on each side of the hare's neck with his long fingers, and started to pull.

The skin of a rabbit or hare is surprisingly thin, almost like silk or wet paper toweling in its thinness and fragility. And within seconds, Jack had exposed the muscles of the neck and shoulders just by using his hands. The flayed patch of flesh was a disturbing sight, and as he exposed the top of the hare's skull, Jack saw the sickly, sickening, red-black clot of a blood bruise, right where he'd dealt the hare the fatal blow with the club.

_Just like the one that was nearly dealt out to me,_ Jack thought, fear at the dreadful memory causing him to internally cringe and constricting his organs. It was made even more terrible by the sight of the hare's blood on his fingertips, bringing back the memory of how he'd regained consciousness on the table and realized with a spacey type of horror that it wasn't exactly paint or mud clotting his thick black hair.

It was too much, and he looked up at Ann, taking a shaky breath and saying, "You know, I feel just absolutely awful about this," as he gestured with his hand to the hare, then the flamingo lying limp in the fire's yellow light.

Ann looked up from where she'd been starting to tear carnation-pink feathers from the bird's breast and stuffing the results into her graciously provided reed slippers to prevent them from blowing away. "Why would you say that Jack?" she asked, cocking her ethereal head in puzzlement. "You don't ever have to feel bad about doing something that feeds both of us, even if you need to kill another animal to do it," she matter-of-factly assured him. "I'm personally glad to see that you can provide for me out here, because I couldn't do it myself. It's a deep comfort," she added in hushed satisfaction.

"And I suppose I should be glad to hear that-which I am. But all the same, I really feel disgusted at myself, because I'm acting no better than they were by killing this hare. And since it's a sentient, thinking hare too, I'm pretty sure that makes me every bit as much a murderer too," Jack responded with a helpless shrug, looking down at his knees with an awkward regret.

Ann didn't need to be reminded who _they_ were, and he saw fear briefly return to compress her lips and tighten the skin around her eyes. From his mental loudspeaker, Jack heard once more the evil cries of the natives, compounded by the memories of the much too similar cackling of the hyena trio they'd heard at close range just hours ago. His nearly shuddering comment to Mufasa that "They're no members of my species, Your Majesty," had summed it all up with an awful simplicity.

Ann made a sound something like a cross between a deep breath and a gulp. Then her ivory features took on a thoughtful, considered expression as she looked at him and the hare he was halfheartedly skinning in the firelight. "Those horrible natives didn't kill Mike, kill those sailors, and…harm you…Jack to eat or survive another day. They did it just to suit themselves and because they wanted to show power and control over others-and-well-because-because they didn't want anyone to interfere with their plans for me," she rattled out, fear making her words clank out like the links of a dropping anchor's chain on a winter day.

"The ultimate kind of control," Jack grimly droned in agreement. "I wonder if they became that way because of their fear of Kong and they've turned into such demonic bastards in some kind of twisted strategy to deal with that fear?" he bitterly speculated.

"Quite likely, although who knows?" Ann meekly shrugged as she ripped another handful of feathers from the gangly wading bird. "But whether it shares our type of intelligence or not Jack, don't you dare go comparing yourself to those terrible men just because you killed a hare to feed us both," she ordered with admonishment in her voice.

"Then I won't," Jack replied, giving her a favoring smile even as his hands returned to divorcing skin from flesh. Within two minutes, the hare was lying grotesquely pink and naked on its own slick skin, as if it had been an illustration from The Joy of Cooking become flesh in more ways than one.

"I guess you're going to eat it now then?" Maradadi languidly ventured from her sprawled position.

"Most animals would, but we're not going to do that just yet," Jack said as he considered how he would possibly be able to clean and butcher the animal without a knife, cleaning his besmirched hands as best he could by wiping them on the stone.

"Why not?" a confused Sarafina asked. "Do you want your kill to soften a bit from decay first? Although I can't speak for all lions, everyone I know adores a meal of carrion that's become _just_ rotten enough to make it taste all nice and gam-"

Ann was visibly blanching in revulsion at the thought, and Jack felt a similar grimace coming to his angular features before he hurriedly interjected, "To be on the level, that's the last thing we as humans want to happen to our meat. We like ours to always be as fresh as possible, meaning under these conditions that we prefer either to kill the animal ourselves like I did tonight, or actually witness the beast dying from other causes."

"I see," Sarafina nodded. "But why aren't you going to eat it now?"

"Because it's still raw," Ann said.

"We need to cook it, let it sit in the fire a bit first," Jack explained.

At that statement, the four or five lionesses not slumbering off their meals in the cave pricked up their tawny flower-petal ears and stared at the writer in disbelief. "You'd want to deliberately take perfectly good meat and _burn_ it in a fire for Ngai's sake?" Chauski gasped in something like horror.

"Every time I think I understand something about the habits of these humans, I'm proved wrong," Deiriai muttered, shaking her head.

"How could you stand to eat meat that you've wrecked like that instead of enjoying it in its pure state as Ngai intended?" Masega asked in shock, as if the very idea was sacrilege. Maybe to them it was, for all Jack knew.

_Well, I'm thinking the exact same thing about how you cats could stand to eat rotten meat,_ Jack silently countered, but wisely holding back his urge to be smart.

"It's not bad at all. It tastes very good that way as far as we're concerned," Ann said in its praise.

"And it's much healthier for us too," Jack added. "Just like I told the painted dogs, cooking the meat kills worms or any other parasites, besides making it easier for us to chew and digest."

"Then will you eat the whole thing?" Purupuru inquired.

Jack shook his head, black thatch of hair flopping as he said, "No, because we don't care for some parts like the feet that don't have very much meat on them or are too difficult for us to chew. Rather picky creatures, aren't we?" the writer joked with a lopsided grin appearing on his face.

"To say the least," Masega commented in dry perplexity. "Are you going to simply bite those parts off then?"

"We usually cut them off with our metal tools called knives," Jack informed her as Ann got up and walked barefoot into the cave, emptying the first batch of feathers from the reed shoes into the bed and spreading them around as soft lining. "But I may have to do that," he said with distaste as he looked at the hare's head.

"I can help you with my claws Jack," Mufasa graciously offered. "Just bring it here."

"Thanks a bunch, Your Highness," Jack replied to the lion king's offer with a relieved smile. He didn't want to have to bite into lymph and connective tissue-sticky meat if he could ever help it.

"We're all friends here," Mufasa dismissed. "Feel free to always call me by name unless I say otherwise."

"I'll do that then," Jack accepted. Unfolding his elegantly lean body, the writer stood up, idly looking at the granite as he did so.

Instantly, it inspired another possibility. He knew, all the way back from a geology course he'd taken at Stuyvesant High School, that granite was an igneous, volcanic-spawned type of rock. The Rock of Ages he and Ann were sharing with the lions was essentially one huge hunk of granite. And where there was that much granite, there could likely also be a slick, jet-black volcanic glass that broke to form edges sharper than a shark's serrated fangs…

"Actually Mufasa, I have an even better plan," Jack announced. "Is there any obsidian here?"

"Obsidian? I've never even heard of that thing before," Mufasa said, shaking his head in bafflement.

"It's a type of rock," Jack clarified. "It's a black, sleek rock that shines in the light and is very, very sharp when broken. Is it around here?"

"I get it now," Mufasa said in comprehension. "And yes, it's here at Pride Rock."

"That's great! Show me where it is!" Jack said excitedly with a smile. He'd more or less been expecting that the lion king would regretfully tell him there was nothing like that here, but he'd joyously been proven wrong. Now he had a source of cutting tools on top of everything else in the obsidian, and maybe even the beginnings of a respectable weapon.

After running and fighting through the middle of a nightmarish green hell to rescue Ann, Jack Driscoll was suddenly being handed one lucky windfall after the other, he and Ann going right from strength to strength. For all he knew, tomorrow one of them would very likely meet the people who left out the medical items and shoes, and become fast friends with them too.

"See that rock-strewn path leading up and away from here?" Mufasa indicated with his massive paw, drawing Jack's attention to where a sort of U-shaped route had been weathered into the stone.

"I do, yes."

"That leads to the sloping top of Pride Rock, and this stone you call obsidian is about thirty-eight of your body lengths away and four of those down the slope to your right at that point."

_Seventy-six yards forward and eight yards to the right_, Jack thought. "Is it in big chunks?"

"Yes, I'd say so."

"That's good. Could you lead me to that spot You-Mufasa?" Jack asked.

"By all means," Mufasa said warmly.

"Just let me take up my caveman's torch here then," the playwright said, walking to the left side of the fire and grabbing the butt end, the pitch-covered part coming out of the roaring fire it had helped to start. "See you in a minute or two, my beautiful broad," he addressed Ann, now getting close to finishing plucking the flamingo as he followed Mufasa up the weathered trail.

Ann giggled all of a sudden then.

"What? What's so funny?"

"You do realize how crazy this all is, don't you Jack? You're following a talking lion which happens to be an African king to a source of stones that you, a sophisticated, urbane playwright, are going to make crude knives from so you can butcher a hare you killed yourself," her alabaster teeth bared in mirth.

"Every single second, Ann. Every single one," he replied with dry humor from over his shoulder as the writer half-crawled up the little ravine.

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Gingerly probing into his trouser pocket, Jack ignored Ann's giggling as he carefully cupped the razor-sharp wedges of obsidian in the palm of his broad hand. Only when they were deposited on the rock did he allow himself to listen to Ann's wild laughter. 

"Jack Driscoll, that is the funniest way of making a cutting tool I've ever seen!" she exclaimed, putting her slim hand over her mouth. "You walked up to the end of Pride Rock, took each chunk in your hand-" imitating his actions as she sat, "and went SMASH! SMASH! SMASH!"

Chest twitching from the force of his wild chuckling, Jack pointed out, "But it still was a clever way of getting the job done, don't you agree?"

"Aw Christ Jack, I never thought in my life I'd be seeing you of all people throwing rocks off a cliff! Hah…" Ann trailed off, overcome as she slapped her satin-draped thighs.

"Neither did I for that matter," he grinned hugely. "I'll admit it was extremely entertaining though, and it gave the chore of gathering all those pieces together an unexpectedly jovial atmosphere."

"That would make a wonderful vaudeville act," Ann snorted. "Come watch a man perform the act of hurling obsidian chunks off a small mountain so that they shatter," she said in a perfect ringmaster's voice, nearly bending backwards in her exuberant laughter. Suddenly she changed tack before Jack's eyes then, saying simply, "But it's getting very late and we'd better be preparing our meals right now."

Despite the fact that Jack wouldn't have minded just being with Ann and listening to her heavenly wind-chime laughter until he was more asleep than awake, the writer had to agree on that point. It was almost half past eleven, according to the Rolex Oyster encircling his wrist, and who knew how long it would take their meat to cook? Half an hour maybe? A whole hour?

Nodding, Jack commented, "I completely concur. When I'm done with the preparing, could you make a kind of grid with some of that other firewood please?"

"Certainly."

"Thanks a lot."

Then, closing his mind to sort of images and things that would be revealed by his actions, Jack Driscoll grasped the dull edge of one of the larger obsidian shards, and used it like a scalpel to cut into the skinned hare's belly muscles. As a boy and youth, he'd seen his father, uncles, brothers, and other male kinsmen gut out deer, ducks, and other game many times before. And as a doctor's son, he'd seen plenty of human organ illustrations, photos, and even preserved specimens along the line too.

Still, it was always an unsettling, morbidly disquieting thing to clap one's blinkers on exposed entrails, especially when they were those of a creature who died at your own hands. So the playwright slipped into the zone of quiet detachment that he was so intimately familiar with, and as such managed to keep from dwelling on it.

And if he, a man who had been at least partially conditioned to this gruesome sight, found the butchery to be unpleasant, Ann, normally so plucky, clearly regarded it as revolting. An ever observant and analytical part of him was aware of Ann's lips curling in disgust and her face blanching before she excused herself, saying "I think I'd like to go play with Simba and Nala now Jack, if that's all right."

"Don't you want to stay for edification's sake?" Jack said, tongue in cheek. "Learning. No, that's fine," he dismissed.

Ann nodded, and then walked a few yards over to where the lion cubs were gently wrestling with each other, batting and rolling and pouncing. She politely asked, "May I join in?"

"You bet!" Simba exclaimed in delight, before flipping on his side and mouthing Ann's slender wrist as she tickled his spotted beige flank.

A charmed smile came to Jack's angular features as he finished up with butchering the hare. "Would you like a snack on me, Mufasa?" the playwright offered to the lion king.

"Gladly. I wouldn't be having a snack _from_ you though," Mufasa smoothly joked. Jack gave a quick smile of his own as the hulking lion came forward and bent his majestic head down to the discards. The lion stopped then, and looked up at Jack with a mildly perplexed expression on his blocky features. "Why are you rejecting the best parts?"

"I'm sorry, the best parts?"

"The liver, lungs, things like those," Mufasa regally specified. "No predator I've heard of scorns them. Why are you?"

At a bit of a loss, Jack Driscoll just shrugged and responded, "I actually don't know. We just usually are taught to think of them as unclean, not good for eating. And so we simply don't care for the organs like you all do."

"Your loss then I suppose, since they're not only the best part, but very good for you too," Mufasa intoned in warning. And Jack knew that the liver was quite nutritious at least…

"You know Your Majesty, you have an excellent point there," Jack agreed in realization before reclaiming both the hare's liver and heart, seeing no sudden flash of possessive envy in Mufasa's golden eyes as he did so. "The rest is yours though," he conceded to the lion as he put the two organs back into the dressed hare.

While the lion king ate the treat the writer had provided for him in four clacking snaps, Jack started in on the flamingo. Ann had done an excellent job of plucking it bare, and they'd have quite a decent sleep tonight in such a down-lined bed-when they did get to sleep-, Jack wryly thought as he gave a deep yawn to force himself back to alertness.

The hare would satisfy a good deal of their protein needs tonight, so after using the obsidian pieces to sever the gangly, naked neck and pink, scaly sticks of legs, the playwright hacked and scraped off only the two large breasts. Dark mauve in color, the flamingo's flesh looked almost exactly like raw pheasant, Jack thoughtfully considered. He hoped that it tasted every bit as delicious, almost flicking his disheveled thatch of black hair back-and checking himself just in time at the realization that he'd be rubbing in gore as well.

"All the bloody work is done with now, Ann darling," he announced with a smile, after putting the rest of the flamingo carcass at the very back of the cave.

"Thank the Lord," Ann sighed, as Mufasa casually crunched up the neck and splintered the wine-red legs in his shearing back teeth.

Simba and Nala came frisking after, pawing at each other and Ann's slip. Jack couldn't help smiling at the charming scene. Even though Ann admittedly looked like she'd been dragged backwards through a huge bush and then forward through a muddy pond, she was still an absolute knockout in Jack's eyes, his luminous angel inside and out. And it was fitting that the animals could recognize it too.

"You're so enchanting that I'd desperately like to hug you this moment," Jack told her longingly, "but my hands are in a rather-uh-gruesome state right now," he reluctantly admitted. Feeling self-conscious about the blood that both marked him as a killer and made him polluted, he put his hands behind his torso and rested on them as she came up.

"That's okay," Ann said with a smile. "I can just kiss you instead. My mighty hunter," she told him in a gentle, light whisper as she sat down, Jack closing his eyelids in bliss as her delicate fingers slid over the hair on each side of his head and her puckered lips pressed against the side of his nose.

It sent a torrent of warmth leaping up to spread throughout his soul, and he knew that this was all he truly needed as she pulled back. Ann shared a loving, peaceful gaze with him for a few seconds in the dancing orange-yellow light, before Nala broke the spell by giggling as she jumped across Simba's withers.

With a bit of reluctance, Jack rose smoothly to his feet, stretched out, and dryly commented, "I don't know about you Ann, but I don't feel like eating meat that's covered in ashes."

"But we don't have a grill or a spit to use Jack," Ann helplessly pointed out. "We might just have to live with it anyway."

"Actually," Jack thoughtfully said as he went over to the pile of firewood, "I'm thinking about making a grid with some of this wood. It'll keep the meat above the coals and we can move it as needed by pinching it between two of these sticks."

"Say Jack, that's a clever idea!" Ann said in admiration.

"Thanks. We'll see how it works in practice," the playwright said, bending down to wrap each of his broad hands around two pieces of wood as the fire crackled and popped at his back. Bearing the heat as best they could, he and Ann threw the branches onto the glowing coals in more or less parallel positions, sending out rockets of embers into the African air. When that was done, the hare and the flamingo breasts went onto the sticks, and began to roast.

Intrigued, Mufasa and all the lionesses who'd chosen to rest outside the cave came forward to watch the meat undergo what to them was an unnecessarily long and complicated preparation process, their instinctive fear of fire causing them to hang back.

"Don't be strangers fellas," Ann cheerily encouraged. "The fire's nice and warm."

Somehow, each of the big cats drew up courage and walked into the circle of the fire's heat. Each lioness found to her delighted astonishment that the flames were quite toasty and soothing, taking up a reclining position by the cooking fire like a gigantic hearthside tabby.

_It doesn't really matter what the size or intelligence is_, Jack reflectively thought as he watched the meat cook. _There are some pleasures and traits that cats can always be counted on to have in common._

Thoughts of his dearly departed cats and the fire made Jack Driscoll think of pleasurable adjacent memories. To make conversation, he offhandedly informed his dame and royal comrades as the frogs peeped and shrilled, "In spite of the fact that my most recent memories of fire are obviously quite traumatic ones, this just brings back so many times of when I'd go camping with my family as a boy or on Boy Scout trips."

"What in Ngai's name is camping?" Sarafina asked with furrowed brows as Ann lightly giggled at her naiveté.

"Well, for us humans camping is an activity where your family packs up and leaves the city, and you live in the woods for a few days while mosquitoes bite you to pieces and your siblings jump around like baboons inside the tent," Jack said with a soft, sardonic snort. Sarafina's headshake told him that the lioness was still none the wiser.

"And what are Boy Scouts?" a puzzled Simba inquired.

"It's more or less this large group of boys your exact same age that you're a part of, like a herd almost. And you're all led by an adult who teaches you and helps everyone teach themselves how to be responsible, to do good deeds for others, how to take care of yourself no matter where you are, how to handle yourself in any type of situation, and basically be an upright, competent citizen."

"That sounds like a lot of fun. It would be pretty cool if we had that here," Simba said with a soft wistfulness. "Do you think I could be a Boy Scout too?" he enquired, putting his front paws on Jack's right side and looking into his green eyes.

The image of Simba in a little Boy Scout uniform was a hilarious mental picture, and a thin, crooked smile came to the writer's tanned face. But then he thought of how Simba had unhesitatingly run back with Nala to save Zazu, even after just getting done with ripping the piss out of him, and how he'd gone right for Shenzi and scratched her to defend Nala.

"You bet Simba," Jack honestly told him. "I really think that you'd make a terrific Boy Scout indeed."

Simba beamed in shy pride before sitting back down and curiously asking, "But what did you do around the fire on those trips?"

"Well, we cooked, just like we're doing now. We played cards, told stories. Talked about what interesting things we were going to do the next day. We would also sing songs."

"You humans can sing?" an interested Nala said.

"Every bit as well as you, Simba, and the other animals did today," Jack informed her, briefly flicking his eyes over to Ann's and hearing once more in his mind her sweet, ethereal singing voice.

"You seem surprised by that," Ann commented.

"That's partly because we never had any idea that your kind could sing, and partly because whenever we've listened to baboons or other monkeys try to sing-it's quite often the direct opposite of what we'd call singing," Purupuru frankly told them.

"Sounds a lot like the noises you'd hear if I tried to carry a tune," Jack dryly commented, lips working back into a lopsided grin. It would've been better if he'd just stayed zipped up.

In a spirit of teasing encouragement, Ann replied, "Oh Jack, I bet that you're a great singer deep down."

"No. You don't want to hear me sing. I'm nothing at all like Choy was at those little ship parties, trust me," Jack adamantly warned.

"I'm optimistic that you'd perform any song just as nicely if you put the effort into it," Ann said hopefully after a few seconds.

"When I put effort into my singing Ann, it sounds just like the noises one of those buffalo at the waterhole would make. I'm no Bing Crosby, and that's all he wrote," Jack emphasized pointedly before smirking involuntarily at the play on words.

"Aw Jack, we'd love to hear you sing. Wouldn't we Dad?" Simba said, looking up into his father's face. Feeling his own angular one reddening as it began to tilt towards the stone, Jack Driscoll fervently prayed that the lion king wouldn't concur.

But Mufasa nodded like a condemning judge, a thin, dignified smile appearing on his features. That was it, he couldn't back out, and the playwright knew that it was the occasion for doing something he enjoyed about as much as he had the brontosaur stampede. Making an idiotic spectacle of himself in front of others.

"Don't worry Jack, it'll be fun," Ann coaxed. "I won't even make you get up and dance," she impishly giggled.

Drawing up his courage, Jack exhaled out, "Fine. I'll sing, even though it probably won't turn out to be a good experience for anyone involved. Especially me," he muttered.

"What song did you decide on Jack?" Ann inquired.

He actually _hadn't_ decided on anything yet, and Jack was at a loss for a few seconds as he cast about in his mental attic. "The Fox Went Out On A Chilly Night," he responded, a bit more hurriedly than the writer had really intended to.

"Ah. That's such a pos-I-tive-ly catchy song," Ann said, showing her two top teeth in a smile of nostalgic enjoyment.

Although he was pessimistic about his ability to sing it directly, Jack Driscoll still greatly enjoyed and appreciated music, just like he regarded any art that was based on the beauty of the written word. And after a few false starts, his voice broadcasted the well-remembered folk tune into the East African night to mingle with the music of the owls and nightjars, frogs and katydids, while the hare and flamingo breasts sizzled and sent out wonderfully delectable aromas.

_"The fox went out on a chilly night_

_And prayed for the moon to give him light_

_For he'd many a mile to go that night_

_Before he reached the town-o _

_Town-o, Town-o_

_He'd many a mile to go that night_

_Before he reached the town-o… _

The lions totally loved the song, getting into the rhythm and singing along where they could. Ann also helpfully jumped in, taking over to play both the singing parts for Old Mother Flipperflopper and the fox's pups with flawlessly beautiful aplomb.

When the last verse had been sung, the lions wanted, begged for, an encore performance. With a mixture of confidence and uncertainty, Jack conceded to their wishes as he and Ann tended to their meat. After that, so spent after his long day and _very _busy night-although granted, it wasn't by any means the first time he'd worked like a mad thing right from evening to the first A.M. hours-Jack deigned to accept Simba's reciprocal suggestion to play the laid-back game of pawlines.

In a remarkable coincidence, the game turned out to be essentially a leonine version of tic-tac-toe, where the cat would make a similar grid of line by dragging the front of a forepaw through the dust. Then, one player would press a toe into one box, while the other lion unsheathed a claw to make a diagonal slash in another. Whoever got three in a row won the game.

Jack and Simba played several games between themselves, while Ann and Nala had a competition of their own, both humans keeping hazy eyes on their dinner as it roasted on the coals and braving the heat to move it as needed or add more wood. As both cubs played on, all of the adult lions drifted back into their own pride's cave to slumber the night away inside.

Finally, after forcing his head up for maybe the fortieth time in as many minutes since he'd first put it on, Jack Driscoll judged that the meat was well and cooked through. "Time for our dinner of roast hare and flamingo, my favorite dame," he wryly announced to Ann, who'd just lost a game to Nala.

"Ummmm. I can hardly wait," Ann answered, a subdued and mischievous expression lighting her dainty features.

"And how," Jack heartily agreed, gastric acids flowing as he stood up and trotted back over to the base of the gully he'd climbed with Mufasa. Choosing two flat pieces of broken rock, he returned to the fire and put them down, Ann watching as he used a couple of fresh branches like tongs to grasp each course and lay them on the stones to cool.

Looking up, he quipped, "Sorry that I couldn't find any plates out here in the African savanna. We'll just have to do with some flat pieces of granite instead."

Ann gave a series of chiming laughs in response before she proposed, "You know Jack, once we get back to New York, we should write a book about the possibilities of stone. We could call it '101 Great Uses For Rocks,'" she giggled, bending slightly in the throes of her amusement.

Jack chuckled himself at the thought as he wryly said, "Why, it'll be a best seller! And don't omit the obsidian from the text too," he added. "If the granite is going to be your plate, then this'll be your knife. Just be careful not to cut yourself," he cautioned, gently putting a large piece into Ann's reaching palm.

"Thanks Jack."

The playwright nodded before giving her the stone with one of the steaming flamingo breasts on it. "Are you going to keep the hare all to yourself then?" Ann dejectedly inquired.

"For the sake of Goodness Ann, no," Jack almost gasped in surprise. "It just has to cool first before I halve it." And when after a few minutes the hare's flesh did become cool enough so that Jack Driscoll could use his impromptu obsidian knives, black as his own hair, to cut both the liver and the body in half, there was no debate in his mind about which half was going where either. The hindquarters and fatter half of the liver went straight to Ann Darrow.

* * *

Although the song "The Fox Went Out On A Chilly Night" has had an admittedly quite funky cover made of it in 2000 by the band Nickel Creek, it is actually a traditional American folk song that dates back to at least the late 18th century, and as far as I know is in the public domain. The phrase "to rip the piss out of someone," is an Irish term that means to make sport of, have playful banter at another's expense. The two-volume cookbook series The Joy of Cooking was first printed in 1931. 

Next up-Waterhole Interlude, where I finally get my crap together and our heroes actually, albeit briefly, talk about the matter of **Scar!** Happy reading everyone!


	18. Waterhole Interlude

**Finally! Another chapter is complete! But man oh man, this one was a struggle to write. It's difficult for me to write a segment where a character is thinking about the thoughts of another character. Such abstract stuff, dude! And as always, I fight very hard to keep our hero and heroine in character. Fortunately though, I'm confident that now I've successfully typed out something that's actually halfway decent!**

**I've said it once and will gladly say it twice, thanks so much to my wonderful reviewers, fellas and dames alike! Your comments serve as my psychological "rocket fuel"!**

* * *

"Do not think that there are no crocodiles just because the water is calm." Malayan Proverb. 

"**Skep'ti-cal (adj.)** Doubting; questioning." _Webster's New World Dictionary, 2002 edition._

At the base of Pride Rock's natural stairs, bats flickering and squeaking through the crystal-studded sky above his head, Jack prodded his weary body into a turn, keeping his eyes on Ann as she delicately made a small leap onto the red oat grass. "All set?" he asked.

Ann nodded, her pale skin accented by the silver moonlight before falling into step alongside her companion.

Jack had always possessed an excellent sense of direction, and it was an easy thing for him to relocate the game trail that led from the Rock of Ages to the waterhole, the musical peeping, trilling, drumming and tinkling of the frogs providing an additional beacon.

As they walked down the narrow, ghost-white strip of bare earth, even as he remained attentive for any scorpions or snakes, he playfully inquired of Ann, "So Ann Darrow, what did you think of my safari cooking?"

"It tasted pretty good Jack. Best roast hare and flamingo I've ever had. Of course, it's the _only_ hare and flamingo I've ever eaten, so it's difficult to judge," she added as her lip corners twitched upwards in amusement.

Honored and heartened by the compliment, Jack felt his own mouth corners do the same before he replied, "It doesn't really leave much to go by, does it? Good to know it has your seal of approval though anyway."

"I have to admit it still could've used some salt," Ann confessed half-teasingly. "And pepper. And butter too."

"I'll gladly drink to that," Jack agreed, a crooked grin appearing on his features. "I'd add steak sauce to that list of condiments as well. And above all, don't forget the coffee."

Giggling, Ann said, "I mostly prefer tea over coffee Jack, but it would be a good thing to have some at hand tonight, wouldn't it?"

"I'll be the first one to concur, especially since it's one of my top five things that I can't live without-the first being you of course as you've seen," he honestly amended.

Ann briefly showed her upper two teeth in a touched smile.

Continuing, he informed her with a light canidness, "Just ask any of my theatre friends and they'll tell you that 'I've never seen Jack Driscoll drink soda, milk, juice, or any other non-hooch beverage in all the years I've known him. No, it can only be cups and cups of java as black as his hair and large as his nose.'"

Eyes widening, Ann sputtered as she desperately tried to hold her laughter in, ultimately failing and bursting out into riotous laughter that sent a startled aardwolf and her twin cubs loping away through the grass.

Getting herself under control, she ran on with it, commenting, "Well, if we're talking about the beverages we'd like to be drinking out here, it couldn't hurt to long for desserts too."

"Oh Ann, don't torture me with that thought," Jack groaned in a mock entreaty. "That's the best part of the meal."

"Yes it is. Now, as for me, since I was a girl, I've always enjoyed a dish of strawberries and whipped cream," she remorselessly went on. "And when you add some honey to the cream-oh my, that is so wonderful!"

"I don't doubt that it is. I preferred blackberries or raspberries with my whipped cream however, and I loved using cinnamon sugar to add more flavor," Jack mentioned, even as he was aware of the waterhole's fringe of silvered reeds now registering in his vision.

The hulking, boulder-like forms of the lake's hippos were scattered randomly throughout the grass, gentle tearing sounds filtering into the cool air as they grazed and chewed around the two humans. "Hey there Jack. Hey there Ann," the huge bull from their first visit cordially greeted them in passing.

Yawning, the playwright responded, "Hey there Kid-Kipper-Kiba-Aw sweet Jesus, I'm too tired to remember," Jack growled in frustration, almost placing his greasy, ashy, and bloody right hand on his forehead before checking himself.

"Kiboko," the bull calmly corrected as Ann snickered.

"Kiboko, that's it. Sorry old boy."

"No problem. Taking a walk together tonight? The moon sure is lovely," the dominant hippo bull thoughtfully commented.

"Actually, we're just going to get a drink and wash up before bed," Ann told him.

"Well, have a good sleep then when you're done," Kiboko finished casually before returning to his grazing.

"Thanks," Jack responded before they continued onwards.

On reaching the waterhole proper, Jack led Ann along the edge of the reed bed to the waterhole's outlet, the actress briefly stopping to pass water. Needless to say, Jack turned away in the interests of their mutual modesty and cheeks flushing, pretended to be deeply interested in a passing blue-tailed skink until Ann was done.

Dispersing a small flotilla of yellow-billed teal as they arrived at the river's source, Jack's first act was to pick up several stones and throw them into the water about ten feet away, each one producing a resonating _plunk_ and sending large circles of ripples across the quicksilver surface.

"What on earth are you doing Jack?" Ann inquired, her exquisite lips and brow pursed in puzzlement.

"Crocodiles," he said by way of explanation. "Distracting any crocodiles that might be at this spot so that they don't snake over and grab one of us," he said, mind flashing back to the appalling sight of how the satanic, whale-sized fish had leapt out of the swamp to seize poor Simon in its viperfish jaws as he'd tried to slog ashore. Not for the first time, the playwright found himself thinking, _I'm truly so glad it wasn't me,_ and then immediately felt like a complete bastard for even daring to accommodate such a selfish emotion.

"That would be a pretty bad and final outcome to the night," Ann dryly said through the calling of the frogs, snapping him back to attention as two giraffe bulls strolled by like dappled exotic plants fifty yards away from the river's opposite bank.

"Absolutely," the writer said gravely. "I think it's probably safe enough for us to drink though now, and for me to wash off _mes mains sanglantes_," he ventured, contemplating the evil-looking veneer that gloved and stained them as he knelt to the water.

"Bloody hands are going to be inevitable whenever you provide meat for us Jack," she responded with a small, pragmatic shrug, taking her place beside him. "Dreadful stuff, but you can't gloss that over."

Giving a small smile of amusement, Jack said with a playful dryness as he finished sucking down a gulp of water- the "_Not to suck drink, that is The Law. Are we not Men?_" admonishment from The Island of Dr. Moreau flashed across his mind for some odd reason-"Yeah, you get to fulfill all your raw, prehistoric longings out here whether you like it or not, and I've checked off a lot of them tonight already."

"From what I've seen, most definitely. Are you enjoying it though, that's the question Jack Driscoll," Ann quipped, mouth corners turning gently upward in the moonlight. He could plainly see that she was grappling with the impluse to laugh.

"So far, I sure am Miss Darrow. It's almost like being Tarzan really," Barely able to keep from cracking up himself, he took on the slow, half-grunting, half-bellowing voice a stereotypical hard-boiled thug or caveman might use, uttering, "Kill! Eat meat! Hunt animals! Fire! Live in cave! Defend and feed woman! Gnaw bones! Make pack of wild dogs and pride of lions into special jungle friends!"

At the last words, Jack was aware of his mouth corners suddenly _hurting_ they were drawn back so far into such a huge grin. He'd never laughed that hard or voluntarily put out a joke that hilarious for a long time. Usually, the playwright was every bit as controlled and refined in his mirth as he was in everything else, such as his gait, his way of seeing the world, his typing and his conversations.

True, there was nothing like half a dozen or so width-of-a-fish's-scale escapes from impending death to make you appreciate life more and take it just a little less seriously. An appraising component of Jack though, knew that any newfound zest for life he felt in the wake of Skull Island wasn't the foremost reason behind it. It was Ann, so good to and good _for_ him in many more ways than one that was really the difference.

She was planting a craving and capacity for enjoyment in his breast, and for once, Jack suspected that this was a potential change to his identity he really wouldn't mind undergoing.

Oblivious to his thoughts about her influence, Ann released her enchanting, evanescent laughter to all corners of the bush, her head bowed as she giggled out, "Oh Jack, can you ever slay me! Special jungle friends! Gnaw bones! Fire!" she repeated, placing her trim pale hand over her lips to muffle her choking snickers.

"Well babe, even in the middle of Africa, I can still keep my tongue very firmly in my cheek," Jack responded through a skewed grin and an almost imperceptible series of chuckles.

Ann giggled back at him before they both got down to business and sucked hard at the platinum-plated water as they rested on palms and knees, Jack aware of his Adam's apple pumping in and out while his throat muscles worked, deliberately placing his hands into water just deep enough to cover them. That way, if a crocodile did come over and take a swipe, it would grab him, and not Ann. When they were both sufficiently hydrated, the playwright and vaudeville actress used sand and gravel to help scrub their stained hands clean of filth.

Ann finished her drink first, and it made Jack grateful to see her gather up even more stones and toss them up the bank into the water herself, making sure that the attentions of any huge aquatic reptiles were directed elsewhere while the writer turned hunter rinsed his hands of grease and gore.

That done, he took one last fleeting drink before rising and asking Ann, "Ready to go?"

Ann demurely nodded, and Jack began to walk back the way they'd come. Then, a temporarily buried anxiety unearthed itself to chill Jack's nerves. Just like when a weasel launches itself through the air, and clamps its jaws onto the base of a gopher's skull half a second before administering the fatal bite, this sense of misgiving also grabbed Jack by the back of his brain.

Stopping after only walking several yards, he asked Ann, in the gentle, coaxing, yet mildly demanding tone that a lawyer might use when trying to extract testimony from a sixth or seventh grader, "Ann, I heard that you came across Scar while you and Mufasa were out collecting firewood. It's obvious that you're not hurt, but did he act threatening towards you in any way?"

She went stock still at his words, and slowly turned to meet his gaze as she gave an apprehensive little puff of air out into the night. Jack felt a chilly wave passing through his torso at Ann's pause, even as she breathily ventured, "Yes and no."

"Jesus Christ! He did?" Jack wheezed in fearful astonishment. Although the playwright hadn't seen as much of the lion as Ann had, thanks to his nap, his peepers had still taken in enough for him to paint a disturbing, unbearable picture in his mind's eye. Looking at Ann, for just a split second Jack saw her fragile body held limply in Scar's jaws, the lion's emerald leer gazing up from where he'd bitten her through the ribs.

It made him go from shocked to concerned to furious in the span of three seconds. Trying to stay as calm as he reasonably could, he breathed in deeply and hissed out, "What did that blasted lion say to you Ann? Or worse, did he growl at you? Either way, he's not going to bully my dame and get away with it," green eyes narrowing as he looked back at Pride Rock, feeling very hot indeed under the slovenly silk shirt's collar. "Lion or no, he'll-"

The writer was silenced in mid-sentence then, as Ann reached out to soothingly place two slim fingers against his lips, running her other hand down his breastbone at the same time. It almost made his leg bones into gelatin, to say nothing of serving as a very effective sedative. The burning vises around his muscles all fell away. "It's okay Jack," she calmed him. "I'm perfectly alright, and he didn't say anything that was _downright_ aggressive directly towards me," she revealed, partially reassuring him.

As her warm digits slid from his lips and down his chin, Jack responded with an icy dryness, "That's good enough to hear, but I'm naturally pretty worried by the idea that a lion talked tough to you Ann. There is no way in blazes I'm going to take that kind of business lying down."

"I know that," Ann said in reply. " Believe me, I am too. But most of the things he said have me scared because from what I can tell, his problem is with you Jack. Not with me, but _you_."

There was a brief silence, heavy and fuzzy with confusion. "You think that Scar's sore at and possibly even threatening _me_?" the thoroughly perplexed writer asked, feeling his brows wrinkle as he cocked his head slightly to look at Ann in the moonlight. "Ann, that makes absolutely no sense. I haven't even had the chance to carry on a decent conversation with the fella, far less offend him. How could-"

"I know it doesn't Jack," Ann cut in. "But it's a kind of sense I got from his words, almost like the feeling I got from seeing Skull Island for the first time," she shrugged. "You know, that it was beyond awful," she added in a strained hush, the memories staining her lazuli eyes.

This was a completely crackers suggestion on Ann's part. It wasn't anywhere close to achieving the degree of insanity that was self-evident in their current state of existence, but curious enough to be baffling.

All the same, the writer had learned over the years that there was something to be said for a dame's intuition, and it wouldn't hurt to hear her out. "Well," Jack said patiently, "try me then, and throw the evidence out into the open. Tell me what happened when you and Scar spoke, every word, and I'll reach my own conclusions about what that lion prince thinks of me."

"I've done plenty of standing and walking already tonight, so let's sit down first," Ann wearily proposed, gesturing at the ground with an ivory hand.

"I'll gladly follow your lead there," he agreed, already carefully listening even as he sat down beside her in the oat grass.

Ann told him what had transpired between her and Scar, how just being around him had made her uneasy, how he seemed like a false, questionable character to her-"He almost seemed like Numa from the Tarzan novels come to life Jack," she said, referring to the name for the male lions which menaced the ape-man-and most perturbing of all, how he'd growled at her in an unmistakable threat.

It filled Jack Driscoll's stomach with a cold, disbelieving sickness as he sucked in air through his open lips. "Oh Christ Ann," he said weakly, completely mastered by his jitters. "You honestly think that Scar would've…attacked you?"

Ann just nodded, silvered curls bobbing in the moonlight as she took his roomy hand and clutched it in a two-way path of reassurance. "Yes Jack, I really think he would've. But there's yet more that I need to say."

"Then go on." Even as fury and horror smoldered together in his brainstem, the playwright forced himself to remain as collected as possible while his girlfriend finished her account, including the cryptic and vaguely worrying remark the black-maned lion had made just before leaving.

"…so that's why I personally don't trust Scar as far as I could throw him, and why I think he _might_ have something against you as well," Ann said in summary, their eyes locked together.

"That's extremely troubling indeed. But let me think it over for a little while," he softly commented. Mystified, Jack Driscoll shifted his gaze to his knees, a study in pensiveness as he mulled Scar's behavior over. For a few minutes, only the peeps and trills of the frogs broke the night's stillness. Everything seemed so outwardly peaceful. Then again, many times Skull Island's jungles had too.

He knew full well that Ann didn't and wouldn't tell lies, especially about a matter that carried such grave implications. And Jack was literally an expert at reading between the lines, so he could certainly see how their interaction had bothered Ann and then made her concerned about his welfare.

The trouble here was, they both barely knew the fella-Jack had only seen Scar for a total of four minutes, and they hadn't even exchanged so much as a word, for God's sake! They scarcely could've done anything to make a bad first impression.

Then too, the writer was aware that it worked both ways. How could he get a reasonable sense of Scar's character, much less his feelings towards them, with so little to work with? It was clear that Scar was rather smart-mouthed, bold to the point of impudence. Beyond that though…

Shifting his exhausted body into a quarter-turn to face Ann directly, he volunteered, "Let's do some thinking out loud here together. From what I've seen of and you've told me about _le lion marque,_ he seems very much a smoothie, and could well have some ill will towards me."

"That's what I think too, like I said before," Ann said, nodding in agreement.

"For the moment though," Jack told her, "what really has me scared is how he growled at you like that-and I agree that his 'heart on my sleeve' excuse was complete baloney. But why would he have done something like that in the first place?"

Gracile shoulders shrugged as Ann helplessly replied, "I really can't say Jack. Maybe Scar just wanted to intimidate me like Kong first had on the cliff, show who's ultimately the dominant one here. I also have the impression that he's jealous of Mufasa for being king," she added, "so maybe it makes him feel good and proud about himself if he can become the boss every so often."

"That way Scar can throw it in his brother's face so to speak, and feel some self-satisfaction at the same time," Jack said in thoughtful understanding.

"Exactly. Either way, His Majesty sure didn't like that one bit, as I said before," she dryly remembered.

"Then again, it could still have been an outright threat," Jack pointed out, uneasily rubbing his right temple as he felt his shoulder muscles clench once more. "If that's so," he went on, "I personally think the most likely reason is that he meant it to be a roundabout challenge to me through you."

"That could sure be the case," Ann softly responded, uneasily fidgeting. A sudden gravity edging her voice, her eyes widened as she implored him, "Don't you dare take it up and confront him though Jack! Please, I don't want to see you har-"

Raising a hand to simultaneously placate and silence, Jack soothingly told her, "Hey, no need for my favorite dame to worry her extremely pretty head. I know when it's an appropriate time to pick my battles," he grinned before leaning forward to kiss her smooth, delicate forehead. "Plus, I've come across more than enough creatures over the past few days which were unmistakeably my enemies, so I really don't want to have to contend with another one," he pointedly added.

Drawing back, he amended with a quiet force, "Still, I'll say this Ann. If Scar ever threatens you like that again,-or even looks at you cross-eyed and you don't approve,-let him know in no uncertain terms that if he touches you, not only will he have to answer to Mufasa and Sarabi, but me as well," pointing at his chest for emphasis. "Big time," he snapped out.

"You bet I shall. Thank you," Ann said with a calm, consoled, softness as she briefly touched Jack's relaxed hand with her fingertips, letting him know her confidence in him as protector. A distant part of the playwright's mind was dubious that he'd actually be able to draw up the self-assurance needed to verbally meet a challenge by Scar, if that was what the lion was looking for. He wasn't Mr. Hayes. All the same, he'd defied and shot at the first mate's killer, and Mufasa could be counted on for support too.

His attention was sent back to the present when Ann abruptly gave a sharp little gasp and put her fingertips to her velvet lips. She wasn't looking at anything in particular, and the mildly concerned writer asked her, "Is something else wrong doll?"

She closed her great blue eyes for a few moments and haltingly breathed in before saying, "Jack Driscoll, something pos-I-tive-ly, absolutely disturbing has just occurred to me." The use of his full name totally galvanized the playwright, and made him aware that that something was serious. But before he could even ask, she continued, "I probably sound like some paranoid, doom-spouting fool here, but I can't help wondering if Scar is even more jealous of Mufasa than I first suspected."

"So?" Jack said with a small shrug. "My brothers were often more jealous of me than they'd dare to show when we were boys and young men. But it passed."

"No Jack,. I'm saying it _might not_ have passed. And I half think he's up to no good myself. Do you think there could possibly be…a Claudius/Hamlet's father situation brewing here?" she nervously asked, lips compressing into an uneasy line as she turned her angelic head to look back at the Rock of Ages.

Jack Driscoll's mouth corners were involuntarily yanked apart as he part hooted, part chuckled at the wildly preposterous suggestion. As tactfully as he could, he good-naturedly jeered, "And we'll end up like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? No offense Miss Darrow, but now you're _really _making a mountain out of a molehill. That's just worrying for the sake of it, and I don't want to see you ever worry about anything without good cause. Besides, he was present for more than a few minutes while I was sleeping right in front of him. If he felt enough animosity towards me to wish me death, that would've been the perfect time to deal it out."

"Maybe the lionesses were all that kept him from doing it. Maybe he's just biding his time," Ann miserably surmised, anxiety visiting her pale face.

"Quit saying things like that," the exasperated writer sternly commanded. "There is not some sort of evil conspiracy going on, and even if Scar was envious enough to want to commit regicide, what could he really do? Lions don't have poisons or stabbing weapons Ann, and we both know His Majesty could whip _le lion marque_ any day of the week."

At the outburst of admonishment, Ann's face registered an initial shock, and then became glum, downcast as she meekly slumped. Horrified by the ramifications of this act, Jack Driscoll reached out to embrace his dame, saying even as he inwardly flagellated himself, "Oh Christ Ann, I'm sorry for flying off the handle a bit like that. I just don't want to ever watch you spin out cares and fears for yourself, especially when we're finally as safe and well off as we can be. After all, remember what I told you after the shoot with Baxter?"

To his delight, Ann let Jack know everything was good by giving him a warm, briefly lingering kiss on the cheek before separating and nodding. "You don't have to be nervous," she gently repeated.

"Or be distressed about shadows that aren't there," Jack said, giving her a comforting, closed-lips smile.

"I guess you're right about that," Ann replied with relaxed sheepishness.

"Hey, I'm the man here," he wryly joked. "Of course I'm always right Ann."

"You're sounding rather like Bruce now," Ann teasingly warned as she giggled.

"But I'm not nearly as big of a chaser," he half-jokingly smirked. "Seriously though, if Scar has it in his head that he doesn't like me, that's his problem. He's not the first-individual-to have felt that way about me before, and he likely won't be the last. All you can ultimately do is either keep at arm's length or continue to make a good impression and hope things change," he said, giving a meditative shrug before standing up and taking Ann's delicate wrist to help her stand in turn.

"You're one of the wisest men I've ever known Jack," she marveled.

"I appreciate hearing that," he replied with a flattered, touched smile. "In fact, how about I demonstrate some of my intellectual skills when we get back to Pride Rock?"

Ann gave him a blank, baffled look as they began to walk back. "What exactly do you mean?"

"I mean that it's a lovely, cloudless night, and there's a nice grassy knoll in front of that outcrop," Jack specified, "-perfect conditions for taking in the constellations together."

Ann's cheeks flushed with excitement in the opalescent light for a few seconds before she showed her two upper teeth in an overjoyed, pleased smile at the romantic gesture. And Jack Driscoll felt confident enough to believe that she understood that it wasn't about the words on the plains of Africa any more than on the Venture either.

* * *

The observant reader may notice a hidden meaning, almost a direct warning, in that proverb... Le lion marque means "the scarred lion," in French, a language that Jack very likely would've studied. 


	19. Nocturnal Fears, Moonlit Dance

'Stumbles in panting' Hey readers. I just got done with a marathon of writing no less than three seperate chapters, meaning that you'll get to have plenty of reading enjoyment for a while. Still _can't_ believe I did that to myself, however!

I also have to admit, that in the interest of attracting more reviewers, I partially sold out and crammed more than a little bit of mushy romance stuff in here.

* * *

"_I will not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings instant annihilation._" _Bene Gesserit Mantra_, from _Dune_, by Frank Herbert. 

"_For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible._" _Alice In Wonderland_, by Lewis Carroll.

_"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sound of music creep in our ears: soft stillness, and the night, become the touches of sweet harmony." The Merchant of Venice._

The meal of wild game Jack had killed, crudely butchered with rocks, and cooked for her was pleasantly stewing in Ann's stomach. It was a relief, both to be full, and to know that Jack could provide for her successfully.

She'd made a decent enough reed bed in the smaller cave, but neither she nor her playwright flame could as yet sleep. How could they with minds as full as their bellies?

So Jack had led her to a knoll under and in front of the great granite spur, and there he pointed out to her the constellations rotating in the night sky above them as they lay on their backs in the Bermuda grass, heads pillowed in clumps of the dark green Sodom apple. Above, stars pulsated like squeezed balloons as the high-pitched donkey brays of zebras floated up from the distance, so perfectly occupying that vast void between soil and stars. The richly varied song of a nightengale overwintering from Europe, perhaps one of the finest singers in the bird world, provided a movingly beautiful counterpoint.

Ann had marveled as he'd picked out the jeweled fishhook of Scorpius, the black ink stain of the Coalsack Nebula, the great square of Centaurus, Alpha Centauri, (Our closest neighboring star, he'd said) the four-way street intersection of the Southern Cross, and in a hugely funny irony, the upside-down Leo.

When Jack had reached the end of his constellation checklist, Ann had joined him in making up new ones, and voiced her latest discovery as she snuggled in the crook of his left arm, head on his shoulder. "There's a goose Jack. Look, there's the beak, then the neck, and then the fat body."

"I don't see where the neck is," Jack said, peering intently.

"Tilt your head my way a little. Now see the line of stars?" she asked while drawing an invisible path with her finger.

"No-Yes, now I do. Very clever," he smiled in approval.

"Thank you," she responded. "Did you come up with any others?"

"Actually yes. Mine is a bit more grandiose, but I'm looking at a celestial St. Patrick's Cathedral. See how those stars make the huge twin spires?"

"A _bit_ grandiose Jack?" Ann playfully teased, even as her eyes worked at arranging the stars into the archbishop's seat.

"All right, quite a bit grandiose," he admitted.

"Now I'm staring to see them," Ann thoughtfully said.

"That cathedral's just absolutely beautiful," Jack offhandedly remarked. "I've attended services there when I was younger."

"Me too." Suddenly Ann was hit by a terrible, crushing type of sensation. Thinking of the cathedral made her mind turn to and dwell on how amazingly, frighteningly far from home she was.

Even worse by far was how, with all the immense, incomprehensible vastness of space above and around her, and the savanna sprawling out as far as the eye could see, she was struck with an awful sense of being exposed, helpless, the stars malevolently staring down like the eyes of a man about to stomp a frantic spider. She was the spider, and the stars, the never-ending bushland, the sky itself, were just biding their time before they obliterated her or Jack!

On top of that, there was the additional paranoia and wriggling fear borne of what had happened to them on Skull Island. Ann had no doubt that her and Jack's respective guardian angels had sure been turning in a lot of overtime. In her case, it had been the painted demon savages-twice-Kong himself, the land crocodile, the colossal centipedes, the Tyrant Lizards-several times, falls, and the bat creatures, possessing positively none of Mbili's gentleness. For Jack, it had also been the savages, the Brontosaurs, the eagle-crocodile dinosaurs, Kong twice, the horrifically huge insects, and the living gargoyles.

Yes, they'd sure been lucky. Miraculously lucky. The paramount thought in her mind right now was how much longer would that luck hold? For all she knew, some great entity was having its sport with them like a cat with a mouse-until it finally became tired of the game and dismissively executed her and Jack both.

"Jack?" she waveringly said, turning to her source of comfort and strength.

Still stargazing, he turned, and fixed her eyes with his hooded ones, seeming to be lidded with wrinkled granite in the moonlight as he propped himself on an elbow and questioned, "Hmm?"

"Jack, what happens next?"

"Sorry, but I don't understand what you're trying to get at Ann," he said, brow furrowing and head slightly cocked in puzzlement.

A tinge of annoyed anxiety in her voice, Ann specified, "That's just it Jack. What happens from here on in, on our journey back home?"

"Oh, I see. You and me both are wondering about that doll," he replied, drawing in a big breath of the night air. "But getting to the point of your question, I'm sure we can both agree that as friendly and accommodating as the lions are, we can't live with them for the rest of our lives."

"Nor would we want to," Ann said with regretful homesickness.

"Right," Jack concurred. "And we know that they know this too of course."

Nodding, Ann stated, "Sarabi told us after all that we could stay as long as we needed to recover and then learn from them and Zazu how to take care of ourselves in the wilderness. But what'll happen to you and me when that's done, and we actually leave the Pridelands?" she inquired, making a sweeping gesture towards the east with her forearm.

"To be on the level with you Ann, lots of things could," Jack answered with a cool flatness, shrugging his shoulders in his half-seated position. "But we might as well drag them out and look at them from every angle instead of agonizing over them. In my experience, whatever happens to be eating you at a particular time often proves to be a case of making a mountain out of a molehill instead."

"And Ann," he resolutely added, giving a slow nod for emphasis, "I don't know what your feelings are, but I'm _not_ letting this chunk of Africa take me, or especially take you if I can help it, not without putting up one hell of a fight first."

"But how can you fight Nature, especially when we have next to nothing to do that with?" Ann asked with quiet fear.

Reaching forward and giving the nape of her neck a quick caress, Jack gently assured her, "Because Ann, we belong to a race that has been doing exactly that remarkably well for tens of thousands of years. But we'll need to go out of our league again, make some changes."

"What kind? And what'll we need to become?" she said uneasily.

"Something more like the lions themselves, more or less like those first men for that matter. What we used to be, animals," giving a sweep of his hand at the savanna. "Plus," he playfully added to break the grave mood, "I _do_ happen to be half Jewish after all, and any simpleton who's read the Bible or looked at history knows that you can't keep our race down that easily. You don't mess around with the Mockies," he quipped, giving a wide crooked grin as Ann chuckled.

"Well, we'll see about that. My biggest fear," Ann softly said as she sat erect and got back to her worries, "is that we'll starve to death. I mean, there are no grocery stores, no soup kitchens, and no breadlines way out here."

"No, there aren't. As far as starvation goes though, I don't think that's too likely," Jack told her as he sat up in turn, running his long silvered fingers through his black thatch of hair. "Remember, most of the animals here haven't seen a human in their lives, so they're totally naïve. And much as I hate to admit it, that means that they'll be ridiculously easy for me-or you-to kill," he said in a pragmatic, even tone. "We also already know some kinds of edible fruit we can eat, and I'm betting that we'll be able to recognize even more when we do strike out on our own."

"But Jack, while you were out with the lions, I had a talk with Mbili for a while about the weather here, and he told me that the dry season will come in only a couple of weeks-maybe even a few days," she informed him. "What'll happen then if we have to depend totally on fruit and it's all dried up and gone?"

Mulling it over for a moment, Jack said, "That information sure is a bit worrying to know. A tree's roots go down far deeper than those of grasses though, and a bush's are the same to a point, so I don't see why they wouldn't continue to still produce fruit for a while."

"Plus, it'll take a bit of time for the dry season to really bite, and we'll probably have learned some things about edible roots from our new friends here in addition. I think we should be able to cover oh, 200-250 miles to safety long before the dry season tightens its grip, don't you think so doll?"

"I think we just might, or at least want to hope so. That leads me to another thing though Jack. We've been extremely fortunate that all the dangerous animals we encountered so far didn't do us serious harm. Jack, Zuri, and their pack were only curious, and then took pity on us, then pledged their friendship. That black mamba was only interested in biting doves, not us. The hyenas were hostile, but only attacked us when we interfered with Simba and Nala-and I'm very glad that we did," she warmly added.

"And last but not at all least, the lions sleeping off a big meal behind us," Jack purred out. "We sure stumbled upon a real boon there. Mufasa has been thinking the same thing though," he went on, "because he told me that at sunset tomorrow, he wants to perform a ceremony that'll make me and you as my dame haramu. Means forbidden, off-limits," he specified, seeing the brief flash of confusion on Ann's face.

"What'll the ceremony be? Will it be some pagan type of thing?" Ann quizzically asked, back muscles tightening as she thought again of the hideous natives and how they'd put her through one too many of those.

"Actually, not really. What happens is that as king, Mufasa will take one of his claws and make a cut on one calf muscle-"

"Oh Jack, don't do that for Christ's sake!" Ann pleaded, throwing her body forward and locking eyes with his. "I don't care even if you've chosen to do it, don't let that lion injure you! You've been hurt plent-"

"Ann," he cut in with a pragmatic firmness, "I want to, _have_ to. I'm doing it so you and I'll have total immunity wherever we go from being harmed by any beast. And you're right Ann, I've already picked up enough wounds that'll leave scars that one more won't make any more difference."

Bowing her head in remorse, a heat pressing against her eyeballs, Ann whispered, "All of those are because of me. I don't want you to suffer any more pain on my account."

Suddenly, Jack's silver-plated arms flicked out and grabbed Ann's shoulders firmly. Shocked, she gasped as he looked squarely at her face, green eyes narrowed. "For crying in the night Ann, listen to me!" he said sharply. "None of the damage that that damned island inflicted on me was your fault, so quit believing that. I suffered it gladly for you, and would do it all again."

Adopting a softer tone and releasing his grip, Ann tensely slipped back a little as Jack sighed, itching his growing beard as he told her, "Ann, if there's any constant in a wild animal's life, it's hardship and pain. Christ knows that we've suffered more then our fair share of that, and will _continue_ to do so until we get back home. It's much better that I willingly endure some brief pain to keep you from being harmed in the future."

She couldn't argue with that logic, and reluctantly accepted it. "You're right. It's just that if you scre-"

"I'll bear it unflinchingly," Jack bravely told her, and she couldn't help but smile with a strange sort of pride.

"Will he need to do it to me as well?"

"No thankfully. Since you're my favorite dame after all, it means that not only am _I_ made untouchable by that scar, but you are as well. In fact, I believe many animals not only understand that calf scar to mean that the bearer is a king's good friend, but also consider it a deed of great merit to feed or groom that individual. Which can only shower us with yet more dividends if it's true," he said with a lopsided smile, ivory teeth glistening in the moonlight.

"Of course though," he dryly added, "there's always the chance we'd come across a beast that cares quite little for what the mark represents-like those hyenas. But you should know now without saying that I'd fight them until they tore me to shreds. Not that I don't have as much aversion to that outcome as any other man would, or exactly see it as a gay prospect," he finished with grim humor.

Her muscles relaxing more, a heartened Ann responded, "Sounds like we'll almost be living on easy street when it comes to any dangerous animals and hunger then. That's only half my worries though Jack."

"What are the rest? Don't hold out. Call the dragons from their lairs and I'll help to slay them," Jack encouraged her with a smile. "That's what white knights do after all," he joked.

"There's two other main ones then," she admitted with a sigh. "I don't want to seem obsessive or like a jittery Jane, but I'm deeply worried about disease. Malaria, dysentery, miserable things like that which make you _die_ in misery. That's something we can't possibly fight off at all Jack."

Jack was silent for a few weighted moments. "No," he said at last with a resigned acceptance, "we'd essentially be helpless if one of us came down with something as awful as that. We'll just have to take whatever precautions we can against them and hope for the best."

"But if you do ever get ill Ann," he tenderly reassured her, extending his broad hand to warmly run his fingertips along her collarbone, "I'd never, ever, abandon you. Ever," he flatly said, looking her right in the eyes.

"And I'd never dare do something like that to you either Jack," she solemnly told him. _In sickness and in health…_she briefly hoped to dream.

He smiled, then put her lips upon her crown, gold turned to silver by the moonlight, like Rumplestilskin's straw into gold in the fairy tale. To think that something as small as a mere germ could slowly shatter the one that she was _living_ with Jack right now-and permanently!

It was a distressing thought, and Jack must've picked up on it, for he looked at her again after leaning back, asking her, "Ann, have you ever read the works of Epicurus?" Ann just regarded him blankly with a you-know-full-well-I-haven't-type of stare. "No, of course not," said Jack with all the mildly embarrassed tact he could muster as the realization hit him too.

"Is there something about disease in them?" Ann warily volunteered.

"A good guess, but there isn't," Jack responded. "He does say though, that some things in this world are up to us, and other things in this world aren't up to us."

Getting the message, Ann supplied, "So in other words, some things are ones we can do something about, and others are beyond our control."

"Exactly," Jack nodded, a proud grin coming upon his features as he looked at her. "Every time I think I've got you figured out, you go and do something that pleasantly proves me wrong. And that's one of the reasons you're so wonderful Ann,' he said in a soft, pleasure-filled tone.

Ecstatically delighted at his praise and the pride he felt towards her, Ann felt her teeth part in a smile of her own as she answered, "If it means you'll continue to give me these wonderful compliments and put me on a pedestal Jack, I guess I'll be doing all sorts of unexpected tricks to impress you for quite some time!"

They both laughed, then Jack told her, "You don't need to throw me for a loop or do tricks to impress me though Ann. You're wonderful enough as it is doll." Deeply touched, Ann just put a hand on his chest, feeling his heart beating as she contently smiled.

Letting it fall, she agreed, saying, "You're right-we're right. I've had to live a life where lots of things were-are-beyond my control, and deal with it. Disease is just one more of those things," she said, running her fingers through her hair to distract herself.

A profound sympathy and regret touching his tanned features-which made Ann feel slightly self-conscious and uncomfortable-Jack softly told her, "And that's just the facts whether we like it or not. The best thing we can probably do to prevent that is to eat as much food as we can, drink clean water whenever possible, and get as much sleep out here as we prudently can. And not to mention," he growled in passionate annoyance, "kill as many of those damned tsetse flies as we can! Something tells me that'll be half the battle," he grinned lightly.

Ann gave a light giggle of agreement, saying "All those flies could disappear from the face of Africa tomorrow and I'd be overjoyed!"

"You and me both Ann, you and me both," Jack said dryly with a few nods to drive his point home. "But what's your other big fear?"

Suddenly feeling this familiar tightness in her shoulder muscles and abdomen, Ann uneasily looked down at the grass, shifting her head back and forth as images of hellfire and spidery black demons forcefully invaded her mind, just like one had invaded her room on the Venture.

Although Ann wasn't a naturalist by any flight of the imagination, she'd often heard before about how snakes could supposedly capture their prey just by locking eyes with it, paralyzing and hypnotizing the hapless animal so that it didn't-couldn't-move so much as a toe. The way it seemed, apparently the reptile's cold eyes acted as portholes to something so malicious, satanically twisted, and just so _wrong _that the cowed creature could do nothing more but sit in a stupor, waiting for the snake to take its life.

Before Skull Island, Ann Darrow had thought that to be just yet another animal fable. Snakes were repulsive and frightening, but they were also dumb animals as well. In the suddenly, shockingly occupied native village though, filled with shrieking, quivering terror after Mike's slaughter by spear, desperately seeking protection from Jack, Preston-even Carl or Baxter for God's sake!-Ann had brutally understood all too well then exactly how the chipmunk confronting the blacksnake feels when she'd found herself gazing into the reddened eyes of the savage warrior, and then those of the ranting island witch. The fires would sear her very soul for as long as she lived.

Gathering courage, she looked at Jack again, saying with a mild trembling, "The people around here we might meet. We haven't actually seen any ourselves, but no animal left those things at the waterhole, and the animals themselves have at least heard about humans, so…"

"It's safe to say we'll meet other people sooner or later," Jack perceptively finished. "Ann, first of all, I am so sorry about what they did to you, that you and I even had to clap eyes on the-those creatures," he said distantly, yet commiseratingly. "We're far away from those demented bastards now though."

A bit impatient and now finally feeling tired, Ann told him, "I'm glad when you comfort me Jack. But could any people here try to harm us too? Or on the other hand, could we expect help from them?" she inquired, more optimistically. She knew that although Jack had rarely ever traveled outside the borders of America, Carl sure had been to Africa many times. And she rightly reasoned that since they were good friends, what Carl knew about African locals, Jack would very likely know too, not to mention what he had gleaned himself from reading.

"Well, the proper answer to that question depends on where we are," Jack said meditatively. "From what I've read and heard, and from the type of terrain, I'd say we're most likely somewhere in British East Africa or Tanganyika," he reasoned.

"Both of which are British colonies," Ann said, even though she was aware that it wasn't necessary to state. In that case, their chances of meeting friendly help, and help that came in the form of fellow English-speaking whites, were very high indeed, and it comforted her greatly just to think about it. For all she knew, she and Jack could find themselves talking with Isak Dinesen, Martin Johnson, or Karen Blixen by this time next week.

Seeming to sense her thoughts, Jack said, "And that sure does work in our favor. In addition, if I was absolutely _forced_ to guess where we are at gunpoint, we're most likely somewhere in Maasailand-southwest or south-central British East Africa. "

"Wow," Ann could only say, amazed at his knowledge.

"Thanks, but most of the credit for that can go to Carl and the media," Jack admitted, and so confirming her earlier assumptions. "But that's why when we finally leave these Pridelands, the best direction for us to go is northeast. We should come across Nairobi and civilization sooner or later. Then it's smooth sailing from there on in more ways then one," he stated, eyes flashing in tandem with his teeth as he gave another crooked grin.

Continuing, he beat Ann to the words she meant to say herself, adding "But we probably won't need to travel as far as that. It's likely that we'll come across oh, a coffee plantation, or a railroad depot, a farmstead, a prospector's camp, a caravan of hunters on safari in their cars, or maybe even a film crew, something like that."

"Which would be a perversely funny irony," Ann said in reference to the last, feeling the corners of her mouth being pulled upward in amusement. "Hello Martin. Hello Osa," she giggled.

Jack chuckled himself. "That certainly would be. What got both of us into this awful mess suddenly being the thing that gets us out," he wryly agreed. "I'm sure we'll present quite a sight to whoever encounters us."

"Especially me," Ann said, looking at her fragile, tattering slip.

"Well, I won't care a fig myself."

"Naturally, since you once told me I have nice legs!" Ann playfully responded.

"I still think you do," Jack said. Suddenly a bit sheepish, he hurriedly went on, "Since this part of Africa was controlled by the Germans until the Great War, we could also come across them as well."

"Do you know any German Jack?" she asked, thinking of Englehorn. She sure as shooting didn't.

"Not that much," Jack reluctantly admitted. "The foreign language I know the best is French. Still, I know enough of it to passably get by. And in spite of the fact that the sea and my stomach don't have the best relationship, I've been to Germany twice for that matter," he added. "I certainly wouldn't dare go there now though, even if I _am_ an American citizen."

"Not with Hitler as the current chancellor I'm sure," Ann said, the liquid, three-note calls of common quail floating through the night air around them.

"Absolutely," Jack evenly replied. "What or where he'll take his party agenda is anyone's guess at the moment, but I'm personally convinced that no good can come of it in the least for Germany's Jews-and maybe all of Europe's."

Heading into a little ramble, he then informed her, "It's a pretty rare thing for me to get truly infuriated by something, as you well know. One of the few times I've ever felt that way in my life though, was when I found out just months ago that his Nazis were piling up and _burning_ all works by Jewish authors-including mine for cripes sake!"

"That must've hurt just terribly," Ann sympathized. She'd been devastated enough to find her theater closed down, but to learn that something you'd slaved over, pouring your heart and soul so eloquently onto paper for the masses was being deliberately destroyed…

"It sure did. Still does," Jack said with veiled bitterness. "I can't comprehend how someone could hate another group of people so much that they'd want to completely erase and liquidate their creative arts. But that's neither here nor there as my mother would say," he dismissed. "What matters is our survival. It could take us as soon as four days, or as long as three weeks of walking in other words before we reached help."

Ann nodded, saying, "And then there's the matter of-any natives…" She clenched her teeth and looked away, letting it hang like the beams of moonlight.

"Yes, there are those sort of people dwelling out here too. But they're _nothing_ like those abominations," he reassured her. "From what I understand, any tribesmen we'll run into will most likely be the Maasai, at least in this plains country."

"I've never really heard much of anything about them," Ann admitted, weakly shrugging her shoulders. " I've seen some artifacts and pictures of them at the Museum of Natural History though. Are they friendly?"

"Yes, absolutely," Jack told her. "Carl and some of my other filmmaker friends have been to East Africa and met them many times. Every time, they've told me how the Maasai can _look_ tough and intimidating, but they're actually very good-natured, generous, brave-they hunt lions after all-and have a tendency to smile quite often."

"They also know white men well enough by now to speak at least some broken English and understand it. So I think we'll be perfectly okay if we encounter them. The only way we could conceivably become targets of their ire is if we stole or bothered their goats or cattle, which I don't plan on doing myself," he dryly said with a crooked smile of his own.

"Nor I," Ann giggled.

"And they're generous enough that they'd probably even _give_ us some of their livestock so we could look after ourselves," Jack informed her.

He chuckled to himself then, and Ann asked, "What? What's so funny Jack?"

Waving his hand with his eyes illuminated by a smile, he commented, "I couldn't help but suddenly have this image of us leaving a Maasai village, you perched on a donkey or riding-ox, while I'm walking alongside, wearing a bright red robe and holding a seven-foot metal spear in one hand, a herdsman's staff in the other, with a few cows and a dozen or so goats behind us. And you're wearing one of those huge, colorful broad beaded collars the women have around your neck," he snickered.

The exotic mental picture also highly amused Ann, and she giggled, "Like a tribal version of Joseph leading Mary to Bethlehem! Jack Driscoll, famed playwright, and honorary Maasai warrior!" she quipped.

"Or just Jack leading Ann to Nairobi," he quipped back with a wide grin. Breaking the subject, he went on, "Then there are the Kikuyu. From what I know, they're farmers, and more or less live in the mountain regions, so it's unlikely that we'd ever encounter them. Not that they're aggressive either, although they've recently been giving the colonial government a bit of saber-rattling" he added. "But it's all just public protesting."

Comforted and not having any reason to distrust his words, Ann was heartened, saying, "I suppose there's nothing to really worry about from the native people here then, is there Jack?" Before he could answer however, a disturbing thought struck her. "Oh God. What about slave raiders?"

Jack was silent for a bit. "Most of the Arab slavers quit doing that sordid kind of thing decades ago Ann, when we were both entering the double-digits in our ages. Still, there are still some operating. That-that's another instance where we just have to hope for the best," he said haltingly.

Hope for the best indeed. In spite of the fact that the odds were so remote as to barely be worth contemplating, Ann couldn't help but feel a heated tightness in her throat as she looked back at Jack.

A radiantly beautiful blonde like her, pale-skinned and blue-eyed, would be a god-sent trophy for a band of slave-takers, just like she'd already been viewed by the natives of Skull Island as an offering to Kong. Jack would fight his hardest, but ultimately she'd only be able to watch in stabbing anguish as he was either killed, or maybe worse, made a captive himself and separated from her forever. She'd probably end up in some bearded sultan's harem, while Jack, if spared, would likely be used for backbreaking manual labor or be made into a eunuch. Oh Christ, poor Jack Driscoll…

"That would be the unkindest cut," she softly said out loud.

"Oh you bet it sure would," Jack said with a small shuddering cringe, briefly looking down at his pelvis. "I've already had Jimmy and an obscenely giant cricket come far too damned close to making me into not much of a man anymore," the comment taking her aback somewhat with its imprudent bluntness.

Suddenly very embarrassed, cheeks flushing darker in the moonlight, he hastily added, "But again Ann, the point is that that's a very small possibility."

"One card that I shan't care to see be drawn," Ann responded, briefly utilizing her barely-remembered father's accent.

"I concur with you there. But are there any other reservations you have Ann?"

"No, all the bases are covered now. And I owe it to you Jack," she said in soft praise to favor him. Impressed and awed at his composed, analytical fashion of examining their problems, she then questioned, "Do you even feel any kind of jitters about what could happen to us out here Jack? You seem to have it so thought out and prepared."

"Like hell I have them," he said flatly. "And the worst are that I'll lose you, especially after that horrid island," he said, clasping her to the warm security of his torso. "But if you don't bring the fear and worry out into the light of day, they'll paralyze you, eat you alive from the inside out."

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself," Ann reflectively responded, thinking of President Roosevelt's words.

"Precisely," Jack told her. "Now, since you've laid bare all your heart's cares and woes, I might as well do the same with the single one I have."

"You have only one Mr. Driscoll? But I thought you're all fancy free about the prospects of the trip back," she teased him. "Go on and do tell though."

Flicking his fingers through a thatch of black hair, he said, "First of all, have you ever read Gulliver's Travels Ann? I know that question seems like a bunch of useless malarkey," he hurriedly added, "but it will lead to something meaningful."

"Yes, and it's one of my favorite books from childhood," Ann responded quizzically. "But why?"

"I can safely say that you know about the part where Gulliver goes to the land of the Yahoos then," Jack distantly commented.

"And how. I remember going up to cart or police horses as a girl and trying to get them to talk and play with me like the Houyhyms," Ann giggled.

Jack smirked, and then said, "Well, it's a type of worry that sounds rather nonsensical, to be sure. But then, Jesus knows that very little in our lives has made sense ever since we came to a certain island."

"Just tell it to me Jack," Ann urged with a yawn. "I'm getting tired now."

"I can't help but wonder if since the animals here can talk and think like those horses…" He deliberately let her figure out the rest.

The horrific, gut-wrenching possibility, nearly too terrible to consider, stabbed right through her. "Oh Christ! Oh Christ Jack," she gulped out, shaking at the thought. "There's other humans here…but they could be as dumb as donkeys while the animals are the intelligent ones," she said in a tone of distant horror. "We'd be the only reasoning human beings on Earth!"

Her and Jack all alone in a world where their "fellow men" were benign brutes and the beasts smart! Filled with despair at the idea, she found that heated tears were starting to leak from her eyes.

She felt Jack's broad hands touching her again, one lifting up her chin, another taking her hand. With desperate regret, he begged her, "Oh God Ann, don't start crying. Please, I can't take seeing you weep. I should've really kept my stupid mouth clamped shut," he said in furious remorse.

"Ann," he hurriedly went on, "that's only a theory I was playing with. Thinking out loud. I'm sorry I said something so upsetting," he apologized, running a hand up and down her back and kissing her hairline in an attempt to calm the actress.

"But look at the situation we're in Jack," she choked out. "How could it be otherwise?"

"Maybe we somehow received the ability to speak with animals when we…ended up here," he soothingly reasoned, kissing her forehead twice more. "And besides, if the humans were no smarter then a beast in the Central Park menagerie, they couldn't _possibly_ have made that medicine and heated water for us back at the waterhole."

Ann's distress melted away under the glow of his logic, and she breathed out with eyes shut, getting her emotions back under control. Meeting his green gaze of concern, she sighed, saying with ironic dryness, "It's good to put your fears in perspective, but it can sure be depressing all the same, huh Jack?"

"I'll drink to that," he said with a wry smile. "We'll both be okay though, and yes, I believe that. In fact, we'll do better than just okay Ann."

Looking out at the beauty of the African night, everything turned ghostly white, silver and black by the moonlight, listening to the frogs and the tree crickets calling, Ann suddenly felt a powerful impulse.

Turning, she requested, "Well, I know that there's one thing that never fails to lift my spirits. Dance with me."

Eyes wide, he stared back with a schoolboy's helpless bewilderment, another you-must-be-joking look on his features. "Please doll, I've humiliated myself enough tonight already with campfire singing. Take pity on me," he desperately sighed.

She shook her head to let him know two things: First, that she _meant_ it, and second, that there was _no_ backing out. "Please, dance with me Jack," she excitedly begged, rising to her feet and plucking at his hand. "I adore dancing. It's what I did for a living after all," she added nostalgically.

Awkwardly unfolding his legs and standing, Jack protested, "Ann, you're an accomplished stage performer. If I tried to do the sort of flips and-"

"No, I'm not asking that Jack," she assured him. "I just want to do something a bit slower in pace."

"Me slow dancing?" her playwright bashfully asked. "I'm a dreadful dancer with two left feet-made of granite," Jack said pointedly.

"Doesn't matter to me as long as you take care not to step on my toes," Ann said with dismissive sweetness. "It's so beautiful out that it's a perfect time Jack-and most of the animals are asleep so you won't have to feel as embarrassed as last time."

For a few thick moments, all Jack could do was give her a pained, terribly self-conscious stare. Then he demurred, giving a reluctant sigh that let her know she'd won. "Fine. But you'll have to lead, since I'm clueless about this sort of thing."

"I'll do that if you provide the music then. Deal Jack?"

"It's a deal," Jack said with a weak smile. "I know my music at least."

Taking her right hand, he led her off the knoll, down to a flat expanse of short grass. It was a lovely and safe dance floor.

Taking her lover's hands in her own, Ann softly asked, "Ready?"

"Ready as I can be."

"Then pick the song and start us off," a warm expectation flooding through Ann's body in the cool night.

Jack briefly looked up at the moon above them, his Roman profile stark against the stars. Then he slipped one arm around her waist, clasping her left hand with the other one. And he began to sing.

* * *

Clearing his throat and inhaling, Jack thought again of how truly stupid he looked. But there was no going back, and as he clasped his dame to him, he sang as they gently swayed, "_The night was mighty dark so you could hardly see/ for the moon refused to shine./ Couple sitting underneath a willow tree/ for love they did pine./_" Jesus, he felt so damn awkward, his head like it was partly filled with BB shot. 

Ann didn't seem to mind though for a wonder, giving a thin smile as she sang in turn, "_Little maid was kinda 'fraid of darkness/ so she said, 'I guess I'll go/_'" giving a comic shudder.

"_Boy began to sigh/ looked up at the sky/ told the moon his little tale of woe_," he responded with a smile.

It encouraged him further, and he amazingly hadn't stepped on her feet yet. Plus, Jack was strongly suspecting that for once, the sensation of dancing with a woman was something he could grow to like. His confidence grew, and his rolling, masculine voice combined with Ann's airy, feminine one as they sang in unison, "_Oh, shine on, shine on harvest moon up in the sky./ I ain't had no lovin' since January, February, June or July./ Snowtime ain't no time to stay outdoors and spoon/ so shine on, shine on harvest moon-for me and my gal!_" _And me and my dame_.

As they rocked back and forth, Jack feeling half-drunk with happiness and ego, Ann softly sang as she looked at his eyes, "_I can't see why a boy should sigh/ when by his side is the girl he loves so true,/ all he has to say is: 'Won't you be my bride,/ for I love you./ Why should I be telling you this secret/ when I know that you can guess?/_'

Suddenly Jack felt totally wretched and ashamed of himself. He hadn't remembered that these words were in the song, and part of the playwright frantically squealed that Ann was only playing her part in the dance, certainly not rebuking him, not on your life pal.

But you still couldn't keep from rebuking yourself. Experiencing a rush of loathing for _still_ not being able to utter that trio of magic words, Jack Driscoll became distracted and stepped on one of Ann's feet.

"Ow!" she yelped in surprise.

Horrified at what he'd done, Jack knelt down, rubbing her foot and crying, "I'm sorry Ann! For Jesus' sake, I didn't mean to crush-"

Holding up a delicate hand and panting, Ann interrupted, "It was an accident Jack, not your fault. And I'll say it again, my feet are tougher than they look."

"Is it okay?"

"Absolutely," comforting him and steadying the writer's nerves with her lovely smile. "Besides, if you tread on people's feet, might as well do it with me right away and get it over with."

"Yeah," he said with an uneasy laugh. If Ann wasn't angry towards him for going and stomping on her toes, perhaps she wasn't as irritated about the fact that he couldn't as yet say "the three hardest words," as the playwright had suspected either. That let him off the hook and gave him a grace period to find his feet for the occasion, which cheered the playwright greatly.

"Say, should we take the end part now Jack?" Ann volunteered, startling him out of his self-congratulatory thoughts.

"A swell idea," he concurred. "And a one, a two, a…"

They became swept up in their dancing, more enthusiastically now, proclaiming, "_Oh, shine on, shine on harvest moon up in the sky./ I ain't had no loving' since January, February, June or July./ Snowtime ain't no time to stay outdoors and spoon,/ so shine on, shine on harvest moon-for me and my gal!/_"

And on the spur of the moment, without further ado, Jack's arms found themselves coiling around Ann's satin-mantled torso, bending her slim pale form double in the moonlight as his lips crashed over hers and they passionately kissed. A small part of Jack, feral and terribly romantic all at once, was so desperately tempted to make love to her then and there in this moonlit paradise, but his sense of morals and decency was thankfully so much stronger. _Lord Jesus, what sort of impulse was that about Jack?_

Laughing in ecstatic surprise, Ann cried in approval, "You're such a born romantic Jack Driscoll!"

"Well Ann, it's not just the songwriters who develop amorous tendencies under a bright moon. We playwrights do too," he told her, feeling his cheek muscles contract in a knowing grin.

Ann half-teased, "And I wouldn't want that any other way."

"Oh stop," Jack playfully begged, cheeks getting warm as he started to contemplate the miniscule white spears of Rhodes grass. "Did it make your spirits rise up and you feel better though Ann? That's the question," hurriedly trying to change the subject.

"By far," she smiled. Yawning again, she added, "It still did nothing for my sleep problem however. I think it's time to go to bed," she stated, stretching and turning to walk towards the rock stairs.

Even wearier (in spite of the perversely good nap he'd had while the lions fed) Jack nodded and followed; ready to catch her if she slipped, although it was unlikely. Walking as noiselessly as they could past the big cave, the lions recumbent plush forms draped over the stone, they stepped into the smaller cave. The fire was still crackling, throwing abundant orange light onto the cave walls, but Jack put some more wood in it all the same. It was difficult not to think of the cannibals as he did so.

Elegantly stepping into the huge lozenge of reeds and fine grass, lined with the pink flamingo feathers, Ann crouched down and stretched her trim form out where she'd placed the lotus bloom after dinner to mark her place. Facing away from the flashing flames, partly so he could sleep better, partly because he didn't want to be seeing the village's hellfires again in his mind's eye more than he had to, Jack Driscoll laid down beside her.

"A kiss goodnight from my very own jungle lord?" Ann drowsily teased, eyes looking into his.

"Happy to oblige," he told her, cradling her head and kissing her widow's peak, adorable snub nose, and then those stunning, full lips.

It was a rapturous moment when she tenderly responded in turn, pressing her lips to his chest, throat hollow, and then locked them to his, sending a flood of electric tingles down the writer's nerves.

Then they could just smile. Jack began to clasp Ann to him, and she started to reciprocate-but then, thinking better of it, she rotated away and presented her back to his interrupted embrace.

And the action made Jack's heart sink a little in depressed pain. He wanted to feel Ann Darrow's breath mingling with his own, feel their heartbeats pounding together as one, separated by only a few inches of bone, flesh, and skin. However, she apparently still didn't trust him enough to sleep in his arms face to face-or was it the terrible intimacy of it, the feelings dredged up that she didn't trust?

Jack reminded himself that this was nonetheless a momentous occasion in their choppy process of bonding, that she felt sufficiently comfortable to kiss him of her own volition and fall asleep in his embrace in the first place. Pulling her even tighter to his torso, he wrapped his arms around her breast and delicately linked his long pianist's fingers together below her delicate chest.

Ann sighed with the pleasure born of warmth and security before tiredly saying, "Sweet dreams Jack. And I mean it," she added in a deadpan voice.

Christ, did he hope so too. "You too sweetheart," he said, kissing her crown. "My favorite dame."

For a few minutes however, not wanting to let go of this surpassing feeling, Jack remained awake. Even then, he thought. He and Ann had undergone more surreal experiences in the past one hundred hours then any man could ever possibly conceive, or _want_ to conceive. Dinosaurs, crazed demonic natives, a brontosaur stampede, nightmarish huge insects, a huge, murderous gorilla, being run aground, a hideous dagger toothed behemoth of a fish, flying bat-wolves, talking intelligent animals, being transported to a new world in Africa, befriending a pack of African painted dogs, saving a lion prince and princess, being accepted into the midst of a grateful lion pride, killing for himself.

He played the timeline of usually disturbing and sickening, but sometimes wondrous events in chronological order. It was one where things kept on becoming "curious and curiouser," and like Alice, Jack Driscoll wondered if anything normal would ever happen to him and Ann again-or better yet, if they'd find themselves in a normal _reality_ ever again. Until that day came, who could say what other fantastical and frightening surprises they were fated to stumble across?

_Tomorrow morning_, Jack thought with a pragmatic mental shrug, _I guess we'll start looking for them-or more precisely they'll go out searching for us-all over again._

Stirring lightly in his embrace, Ann softly spoke to the cave's back wall, "Everything's okay Jack. Just go to sleep now."

_That's right_, Jack silently, wearily agreed as his eyelids turned the world black, closing in the slow manner that a crocodile's lids do. _Just sleep._

* * *

Intoxicated by the feeling of Jack's body heat and the heat from the fire, Ann reflected blissfully that she could experience this feeling forever, listening to his snoring and the crackling of flames. 

She didn't care right now that Jack hadn't proclaimed out loud that he loved her. There was no cynical voice in her head this time, nagging _Everybody goes away_ at her in an awful mantra. Only pure contentment.

"Tarzan and his mate," she proudly whispered with a slow, sublime smile, looking at the huge meshed hands under her bosom. "I love you Jack. I feel safe whenever you're around," she said with gentle conviction after a pause, all the quiet force of her body and soul behind it. "You're my hero and prince. With a heart of gold." Then she too, let sleep take her.

* * *

The song Shine On Harvest Moon was written in 1908, and from what I can tell, is in the public domain. If I've broken any rules/laws anyway, I apologize and will never let it happen again. Until declaring independence from British rule, Kenya was known as British East Africa, while Tanzania was known as Tanganyika. Martin and Osa Johnson were a famous husband and wife team of pioneering filmmakers during the 1930's who traveled and worked extensively throughout Central and East Africa. They were the first people to capture many animals, cultures, and landscapes-ones that we are now accustomed to seeing on TV-on film, such as Mount Kilimanjaro, Mbuti Pygmies, vast flocks of flamingos, great herds of wildebeest, and wild gorillas. 


	20. Dreams Of Danger

**Don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I'm quite satisifiyed indeed with how this chapter turned out. Hopefully, you'll find it just as pleasing-and downright romantic-too. Also, for people who might be beginning to wonder if anything else that's actually interesting or action-packed is going to occur in this fic, the foreshadowing in this chapter should get your blood flowing in expectation...**

I can't state this enough, thanks so much to all my loyal reviewers. If I had the choice between a new review and a king-sized Almond Joy bar, I'd be in quite a quandry!

* * *

"_The light in the walls was blood-red now, steadily fading. DREAMS ARE DOORWAYS._" _Cold Fire_, Dean Koontz, 1991. 

"_By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes_." _Macbeth._

"_Even so she kiss'd his brow, his cheek, his chin/And where she ends she doth anew begin_." _Venus and Adonis_, William Shakespeare.

_She_ was here again! The hideous, obscene old witch –woman, a figure carved of hardened lava and driftwood from a poisonous tree, fixed Ann's helpless blue eyes with her own ghastly ones. The demon crone, as before, was malevolently hurling curses and hatred at the American woman's quivering form. This time though, Ann could understand every single word the island sorceress shrieked into the air, as easily as whenever her mother would revert to speaking French, Melissa's birth language.

And Jesus above, how Ann wished that she couldn't and didn't.

It was too much terror and horror to endure, and Ann gave voice to it with a scream, a piercing knife that cut an escape route out of her subconscious mind and let her flee with a start back to the real world.

Warm fire, a safe dark cave, and best of all the feeling of being embraced in Jack's arms registered on Ann's panicked mind in the next instant, her lover's voice containing both urgency and softness as he frantically ululated, "Oh Christ Ann! You're having a nightmare! It's okay darling, I'm here, it's over now for both of us. We're all right. Hush…" he whispered in her ear before she turned and clutched his dark body with all the strength she could muster, tucking her head under Jack's chin.

Sobbing from a double whammy of relief and dread, she kept that position for a minute, holding onto Jack like a shipwreck victim clutching a log. For his part, Jack continued to comfort her, lightly caressing and kissing the top of her head as Ann felt his heart, determined and alive, beating against hers.

The dregs of the panic began to trickle away, leaving a merciful emptiness. Sensing her body beginning to relax, Jack allowed her to slip out of his grasp, softly telling her, "I'm next to certain it was the island, right? Ann baby, I'm so sorry. If I could take those memories out of your head and blow them to bits, I would," he declared with a slow anger.

Looking into his concerned green eyes, Ann sniffed and nodded miserably, saying in agreement, "I'd love nothing better." Without waiting for Jack to speak-because she knew what he meant to say and wanted to let the fear out at the same time-Ann continued, "It was so awful Jack! I saw _her_ again, and this time I was able to understand _exactly_ what she said!"

"If I think I know who you mean by her, then a merciful God shouldn't be letting an angel see that in her dreams," Jack said grimly, eyes narrowing with bitterness. "But what exactly did she say?"

In a quivering, desperate voice, Ann clamped down and told him, "You aren't going to like hearing this Jack. Not one bit."

"Well, try me," Jack coaxed.

"Okay then. She-she-she told me in the dream that it was too bad that you'd fought her people so hard and one of them had had to take a club to you so soon. Oh God, I thought that they'd murdered you!"

"I did too Ann, I did too," Jack told her with a thin sigh, clutching her to his chest again briefly. "But by some miracle it wasn't to be, and we're still both here."

"And if there's any truth to what you dreamt," he continued, "I suppose I can take some perverse delight in the fact that I gave those savages quite a run for their money. Father always did tell me after all that if you have to exchange blows with someone, you let the other fella know that the fight was no joke, even if you lose in the end. But go on if you're ready," he said.

_Actually, are you ready Jack?_ Ann thought in trepidation. "That horrible witch told me that if things had been different, after Carl, then Herb, had been killed, those savage men would've dragged _YOU _to the stone Jack. Then they'd have smashed _your_ head open, killed you before my eyes."

The thought of seeing Jack's tall Adonis body going limp forever in a rush of blood, his noble head and poetic mind being shattered like a porcelain bowl full of oatmeal as all the savages mockingly laughed at his execution and Ann's helpless anguish was an image she couldn't stand to even visualize, and Ann clenched her eyes shut against it, tears starting to flow as she bent her head, saying hollowly, "And they would've laughed at my agony."

"Good blessed Christ," Jack voiced in a distant tone of horror and sympathy, eyes widening. It didn't sound at all like a curse. "You don't need to be scared or worried about that happening anymore though sweetheart," he gently reassured her after a thickened few moments. "And here's the proof that my skull's still quite intact," he warmly added, Ann opening her eyes again as she felt his hands cup each side of her jaw and then his lips touch, then slowly suck at hers.

It was wonderfully comforting indeed, but Ann matter-of-factly told Jack, meeting his eyes after he stopped, "I am scared though Jack. Scared for you especially, because that wasn't the whole nightmare. That woman told me something else, threatened you."

"And what was that?" Jack calmly inquired.

"When Englehorn came, he shot the native that was about to kill Carl-would've killed you Jack," she stated. "And in the nightmare, she shrieked at me that she was furious, not only about that you lived, but interfered with my-sacrifice-and reclaimed me."

"Well, I sure as the hell that they all came from am not," Jack almost snarled out. "If those crazed, inbred abominations of humans want to rant about being cheated till the cows come home, or burn me in effigy for that matter, then they can be my goddamn guests as far as I'm concerned."

Cooling down suddenly, he looked at her in part shame and part bashfulness, saying apologetically, "I'm sorry Ann. I shouldn't be cursing my head off in front of a lady."

"I've heard worse before," Ann dismissively assured him. "What made me so frightened was the last part, when that vile witch told me that she was going to send that evil man's spirit over here, and give it a whole new form. Then she'll send that beast to-to-to…" She couldn't bring herself to say the words, and just stammered in despondent fear, waving her hands helplessly.

"To kill me?" Jack finished with a soft, whispered bluntness. "I can definitely understand why that nightmare and that thought would be extremely upsetting," he told her. "It was just that though Ann, a nightmare."

Lying back down on the crude reed and grass mattress, he sighed and calmly continued, "This is reality though, where we're together and alive. Besides, we're over in East Africa now, a whole ocean away from Skull Island. I doubt there's very much that even a spirit could do to us all the way over here," he said, showing his white teeth in a pleasing grin.

"Maybe you're right Jack," Ann said pensively, looking out at the star-studded sky through the cave mouth. "But it was just too raw, so real to me, and I have this horrible worry that you'll leave or die on me somehow."

"Hey, that's perfectly natural to have those feelings after an awful dream like that. I don't blame you in the least," Jack candidly told her. "But please don't think that way for too long though," he advised her, putting his hand over hers.

"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me Ann," he told her, gently running his fingertips over her collarbone and inner arm in that nerve-tingling way. "We've both been through a hell of a lot to put it mildly over these past four days, and I never gave up on you, never stopped fighting, never let you down. And remember what I said after we parted ways with the wild dogs?" he prodded, playfully raising his eyebrows.

Remembering, Ann lightly laughed and nodded, repeating, "We're sticking together out here."

"Whether we like it or not I believe," Jack wryly smirked.

Calmed and heartened by that, yet still feeling like she was on shaky ground, Ann gave voice to the other distinct half of her unease. "There's something else I have to admit to as well Jack. Even before that nightmare, I've been having this awful feeling, and it deeply concerns me."

"What are you concerned about? I thought we went over all the dangers and problems we could encounter on the way back and concluded that they really weren't so bad. We can deal with them Ann, don't worry."

"I know that Jack. It's just that I feel as if things, huge, huge things, are being hidden from me somehow, like I'm being deceived, and it's the serious kind."

"Well first of all, you can rest assured that I would and could never lie to you Ann. Maybe to other people, but never you," Jack frankly responded. "I'd rather rip out my vocal cords then knowingly tell you a lie."

Touched, Ann smiled, replying, "Of course you wouldn't Jack. I know that you're a very honest man. It's only this suspicion I have, that someone, not you, has told me lies, but I can't guess who."

"Well, I think you're just being nervous, that Carl's actions have simply tainted your sense of trust for a bit and made you paranoid."

"After all, Carl _did_ viciously lie to you and put you in jeopardy all for the sake of a film, and maybe even more reprehensibly flat-out tricked _me_ of all people, supposedly a good friend who's known him since college," Jack commented in disgust. "To say that the man glosses things over is quite an understatement. But don't ever allow that to taint you."

"It doesn't really have anything to do with what Carl did," Ann drowsily stated, shaking her head. "I just have that feeling. Oh, I give it up," she declared, throwing her hands up in resignation. She was only uselessly going around in circles.

"I was just going to say, it's not worth dwelling on your uncertainties if there's no substance behind them to begin with," Jack advised before stretching out again. "Meanwhile, tomorrow is another day, and we'll take each one together as they come. And we'll get through the next one the same way. And then the next one after that, and the next one after that."

There was something so alleviating in his quiet, brave logic. It gave way to an abrupt impulse that crashed onto Ann like a breaking wave, longing and desire forcibly dragging the nervous, cautious part of her along for the ride like a swimmer caught in an undertow.

Without fully understanding why, she told her playwright, "Jack, let's start a bedtime ritual and do it when each of those days ends." Part of her voicelessly shrieked, _What in the hell are you doing getting in so deep, you foolish broad? _But she paid no heed. Besides, if the worst happened, why wouldn't she want to have this memory of doing this with him?

"A bedtime ritual?" Jack said quizzically. With a blush, he looked away, saying haltingly, "You're not thinking about something steamy, because, well, it's a little too-"

"No Jack, far from it!" she said with a shocked yet chiming laugh. "It's this," she courageously whispered as she bent to him. "Just repeat what I do Mr. Driscoll." Slipping her fingers through his wildly disheveled locks, she kissed his crown, which the natives had almost broken.

He smoothly smiled in delight before tossing it back, achingly warm lips pressing against her own scalp. She closed her eyes before putting her lips to his forehead. Then each of his eyelids. Then each side of his aquiline nose. Then each lean cheek, taking in the sandpapery rub of his growing beard against hers. Then the tip of the chin. Then his Adam's apple. Each time, he willingly returned the gesture, a flood of sweet, blissful passion and peace rushing through Ann Darrow's bloodstream. Finally, the best being saved for last, their lips gracefully mingled. It felt like eating hot ambrosia.

"Now Jack," she said with a beatific smile, "is that a bedtime ritual you can approve of?"

"I could very much get used to doing that," he contentedly whispered back, long fingers stroking the point between her neck and shoulder. "Yeah, I'm thinking that's an excellent sensation to go to sleep on. Should chase away the nightmares too. And if you still have any others Ann, don't be scared by them, because I'll look after you. They'll go away for both of us in time."

"And I'll give you comfort until then too," a soothed Ann responded, turning on her axis to snuggle back into her playwright's tanned muscular arms. She felt so secure, and yet so full of misgivings about the future.

Her own father, Phillip Darrow, had cruelly walked out on his family when she'd only been four years old. As a result, Ann didn't remember much about him, her mother's memories filling in the gaps as best they could. On one occasion, Melissa had told Ann and Alice that it was rumored among Phillip's side of the family that his own mother-whom Ann had only met twice-, born in England like his father, ironically had witch blood in her veins and the gift of prophecy to a limited degree. It was said that Grandma Kate had seen the Fort Sumter attack which kicked off the Civil War for example, and could sometimes have an idea of when a disease outbreak was going to hit New York before it happened.

_If it's true, I wonder if I have some of that witch blood in me too,_ Ann silently pondered. It was hogwash and rubbish to be true, but hadn't she originally believed the same thing about Skull Island? _If that's the case, no matter what Jack thinks, I'm going to listen to what it says. And I don't think the news is good._

Jack was already deeply asleep once more, so it made Ann's body tense when she heard a noise suddenly near the cave entrance. It was the sound of padded feet, and it immediately broke her train of thought, replacing it with trepidation. Was it some creature coming to kill or attack them both? It would be just their luck to have that happen right on the heels of her dream, that was for sure. Not wanting to turn around, partly to avoid seeing the animal, partly to not wake Jack, she just listened as it entered the cave and scampered closer.

To her delighted relief, the light gait told her that it was only Simba, the lion cub come to visit her. "Ann? Are you awake?" he politely asked as he crept forward, providing conformation of his identity.

"Yes I am, Simba. But Jack's not, so you'll have to whisper," she replied in a near-imperceptible voice. "Why aren't you asleep too?"

Fortunately, a lion's hearing is extremely good, and Simba had no problem hearing her. Stealthily circling their heads, Simba slunk into her field of vision before saying concernedly, "We heard you scream and it woke us up. Did you have a nightmare? I'd have a nightmare about those awful things," he said with kind softness.

A part of her feeling strangely embarrassed and ashamed about the disturbance her screaming had caused, Ann said, "Yes Simba, I did. And it was awful indeed."

"What was it about?" Simba asked candidly. "Mom always tells me that it's good to talk about your nightmares, because that way you aren't all frightened inside."

It was a remarkably wise and precocious statement. "Really?" Ann said in amazement. "My mother used to tell me the same thing too," she told him quietly.

Still lying on her side, Ann ventured to tell the lion prince, "But about my nightmare Simba, I dreamed that someone said that Jack was going to be taken away from me." A red spiral of fear twisted down through her thorax again at the thought, turning icy as it reached her abdomen.

Simba, the cave, the bed, and even the fire all momentarily disappeared then. All Ann was aware of was feeling Jack's body heat against hers, feeling his breath and nose against her nape and the back of her skull, smelling his thick musky, sweaty scent. If those were taken away-taken permanently-it would feel like being condemned to hell. God, it would feel _worse _than that!

"That's a sad dream," Simba replied in sympathy, coming forward to nuzzle her neck with his velvet forehead and cheek. "I don't think that'll happen though. He'll be with you forever, just like me and my dad," the cub said with confident conviction as he leaned into her chest. How powerful the muscles in his body already were!

Charmed and deeply touched, Ann reassured him, "It's okay Simba. Jack already did the comforting, and I do feel better now." It was mostly the truth.

All of a sudden, Simba fidgeted a little and then looked her in the eyes, asking "Ann, can I sleep with you and Jack tonight?"

The request took her by surprise, and Ann nearly checked, catching herself in time not to wake her fella. "Don't you want to sleep with your mother instead Simba?" she asked in bewilderment.

"You need me here more," Simba said with frank simplicity. "Besides, I asked my Mom if I could sleep with you two, since you were scared enough to scream."

Moved by the sweet, selfless gesture, Ann smiled lovingly at the lion prince, whispering "Then that's all right with me, and I know it would be fine with Jack too. You're so sweet Simba. You'll make a fine king one day."

Beaming with a warm kind of fledgling pride, Simba just said "Thank you," before inserting his plush muscled butterscotch form into her grateful embrace.

"Good night Ann," he told her.

"Good night Simba," she fondly whispered, pulling him to her lightly built chest.

He fell asleep in her arms, fur feeling like velvet against her skin as she breathed in his honeyed, grassy scent. It was a sublime combination, one that just felt so right to her. Ann was getting warmth and love from Jack as he held her in his arms, and she was giving Simba the same things while he slept in her arms.

It felt so blissful, so natural, sandwiched between and feeling two hearts, two pulses, beating against each side of her. Could she dare to dream for once that this was just a foretaste of even better things to come for the two of them? Yes, for tonight she would and could.

Despite such soaring thoughts though, as she finally drifted off, an annoyingly fearful part of Ann Darrow couldn't help but wonder if both the chilling hag's announcement in her nightmare, and her very real sense of being lied to were connected. And then she wondered if they had to do with Scar.

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Every time you review, you save a baby elephant! Well, maybe not, but you get the picture. 


	21. Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch

Here's my latest chapter for now, where the tension factor _really_ gets bumped up.

I must apologize for inserting canon material from the movie here. You can describe it as eloquently and beautifully as you want, but in the end, a Kleenx box is just a boring Kleenx box we've all seen before, right? I've tried to keep this repition to the bare minimum, only writing parts where the words of a character were altered in response to the presence of our human heroes, or material that was needed to frame that altered dialouge.

Now enter the bad guy. As a general rule, it is pretty rare for most wild carnivores to kill just for the sheer sport of it, and just as rare for them to deliberately torture prey. Nduli, (murderer, assassin) in Swahili, is not most carnivores. I had a real American Psycho vibe oozing from this chilling beast of an OC while coming up with him, and I hope that shines through, weird as it is to say! Ah, the joys of writing a soulless monster-type character!

* * *

_Ingonyama nengw' enamabala._ Translation from Xhosa: A lion and a leopard come to this open place. From The Circle of Life. 

"_Fossil evidence shows that leopards have killed hominids since Australopithecines hunted and gathered in Africa. Their night-stalking habits undoubtedly helped influence our primordial fear of darkness and our need to gather close around a blazing fire. Homo sapiens, it would seem, has always been a normal part of the leopard's diet..." _Barbara Sleeper, Wild Cats of the World, 1995.

Hyenas get great enjoyment out of laughing at the misfortunes of other animals. Even their fellow clan members aren't immune. Tonight, Ed was having a good series of cackles at the expense of Banzai, his friend's hindquarters bearing the painful results of a red raking by the lion king's claws.

The skin of a spotted hyena is very, very tough, and difficult to penetrate. Nevertheless, no matter what hide it wears, the animal that has had the bad luck to be slapped around by a male lion is certainly going to remember it in the morning, to say the very least. Putting that raw, torn sensation into words, Banzai bitterly cursed, "Man that lousy Mufasa! I won't be able to sit for a week."

Instead of offering any type of sympathy, Ed continued to produce manic giggles.

In a deadpan voice, heavy with warning, Banzai said, "It's not funny, _Ed_. And I don't know why the heck _you're_ sitting there laughing after some hairless overgrown monkey smashed out one of your teeth."

Realizing that his friend had a point, Ed stopped and thoughtfully cocked his head, rubbing his throbbing stump of a tooth with his paw for half a second. But the urge to laugh at Banzai proved far stronger in the haywire hyena's brain. He tried to throttle it, but burst out laughing even harder in great, gasping, wheezing _BWA-HAAAS!_

"Hey, shut up!" an incensed Banzai whined.

Ed didn't and couldn't do that though. Pinning back his ears, Banzai growled in mounting annoyance before tackling Ed, who didn't even have time to go into a defensive crouch before both males were wrestling and snapping together in the dust.

"Will you knock it off!" an exasperated Shenzi yelled from her perch above some broken rock, tinted an eerie green-yellow in the geothermal light of the steam vents and fumaroles. Banzai obeyed, breaking away from the squabble even as Ed continued to manically chomp down on his own leg like some crazed squirrel.

"Well, he started it!" Banzai exclaimed, pointing a blaming finger at Ed before drawing back with a repelled grimace.

Shenzi just gave a snort of derision before padding down. "Look at you guys. No wonder we're dangling at the bottom of the food chain," she said.

Carrion-scented drool ironically hanging from his mouth, Banzai sourly declared, "Man, I hate dangling."

"Shyeah?" Shenzi said for emphasis as she reached the two males. "If it weren't for those lions, we'd be _running_ the joint," she enviously pronounced, pointedly bobbing her tousled bearlike head at Banzai.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Man, I hate lions. And I've decided after today that I hate humans too," he added.

"They have an irritating amount in common," Shenzi said with a nod. "So pushy."

"And hairy."

"And stinky."

"And man are they _both_…"

"_Uuugg-LEE_!" Shenzi and Banzai heartily proclaimed in unison, back to back as they gave vent to wild giggling, Ed joining in.

"Oh, surely we lions at least are not all _that_ bad," a male lion's voice coolly interjected from above them.

Hearing the voice of the only creature in the world that they truly feared, all three hyenas flashed around in startled fright. Then the identity of the speaker registered, their lord's lanky form illuminated by the pea-green lights from below.

"Oh Scar, it's just you," Banzai sighed amiably in relief.

"We were afraid it was somebody important," Shenzi thoughtlessly explained.

* * *

"I'm su_rrounded_ by idiots," Scar sighed in dry weariness, rubbing his temple in exasperation as he regarded his three main followers. 

"Not you Scar, I mean, you're one of us. You're our pal," Banzai responded in a tone of grateful amiability.

The honor was rather dubious as far as the lion was concerned, and he sarcastically drawled "Charmed," while rolling his eyes in disdain. They were really more a necessary evil and hired help than pals.

Impressed by her lord's debonair manner, Shenzi said "Ohh, I like that. He's not king, but he's still so proper."

"Yeah," Banzai agreed. Eyes lighting up all of a sudden, he shamelessly wheedled, "Hey hey hey. Did ya bring us anything to eat, Scar, old buddy, old pal? Huh? Did-ya-did-ya-did-ya?" he asked, begging like a spoiled child visiting his grandmother.

With a faint sneer that bespoke his disgust and disdain at both their greed and failure, Scar reached behind him and grabbed the zebra haunch he'd taken from his prides' kill earlier. And after seeing firsthand what _weak_ and fragile beings Jack and Ann were, the fact that his agents had been unable to deal with the human meddlers was especially pathetic.

"I don't think you really deserve this," Scar dryly said, holding out the black-and-white ham as the hyenas snapped to attention, rearing up on their stocky hind legs and spraying drool in expectation like a trio of misshapen, scruffy crosses between black bears and Newfoundland dogs. "I practically gift wrapped those cubs for you, and you couldn't even dispose of _them_," he drawled, a cool mixture of accusation and admonishment tinting his voice as he simultaneously let the haunch drop and scornfully turned his head aside while the famished hyenas tore into it.

Even as she chewed a large bite, Shenzi raised her head to plead her case, pointing out, "Well, ya know, it wasn't exactly like they was _alone_, Scar."

As she returned to feeding, Banzai's head came up, stating reasonably, "Yeah. How were we supposed to know that some gung-ho hominids would come out of nowhere wielding rocks and bone clubs?"

"That's no excuse," Scar crisply shot back, lightly lashing his tail in irritation. "You all could've soundly trounced them if you'd wanted to."

After bolting yet more zebra, the stung Banzai sheepishly admitted, "Yeah, I guess so. But what about when Daddy came?" he demanded. "What were we supposed to do then? Kill Mufasa?"

Sliding his head over his paw, Scar gave them a puff adder's gleeful leer as he responded, "Precisely."

The hyenas all looked up together, faces a study in puzzlement.

* * *

With a resounding crash, a shocked Ed went flying backwards into an assemblage of dry herbivore bones. His companions surfaced alongside him, their heads all crowned by horned skulls like wanna-be Celtic warriors, Ed wearing a Thompson gazelle's pate, Shenzi an impala doe's, and Banzai a Cape buffalo's skull. 

"Yeah, be prepared," he enthusiastically yelled in agreement. "Yeah-heh. We'll be prepared, heh… For what?" he asked, suddenly at a loss.

"For the death of the king," Scar pronounced from above.

"Why? Is he sick?"

Exasperated to the point of fury by the hyena's dullness, Scar grabbed him by the throat, flatly droning, "No fool, we're going to kill him. And Simba too," he added before roughly dropping Banzai in a heap on the granite.

"Great idea! Who needs a king?" Shenzi zealously screeched. Unable to control their sheer delirious glee, she and Ed danced around Banzai's seated hunched form, his voice accompanying hers in a ludicrous chorus of "No king! No king! La-la-la-la-la-laaaa!"

"IDIOTS!" Scar bellowed. "There will _be_ a king!"

Taken aback by the contradiction, Banzai babbled, "Hey, but you said, uh…"

"**I WILL BE KING! **Stick with me, and _you'll never go hungry again!_"Scar grandiosely proclaimed from a great podium of granite as volcanic lights suddenly came awake to cast a preternatural orange-yellow light over the graveyard.

"Yaay! All right! Long live the king!" the three hyenas passionately cheered, utterly seized by zeal.

The slogan was taken up by dozens upon dozens upon dozens of other, equally fervent hyenas, revealed by the fiery lights from the earth's mantle. "Long live the king! Long live the king!" they barked out. One of the voices was more restrained, and much closer to Scar's in its tone.

That particular speaker stood on velvet paws and coolly remained in the same position while his hyena companions formed a militarily rigid rhombus of scavengers and goose-stepped across the vale's floor, all eyes on Scar as they crisply chanted, "It's great that we'll soon be connected, with a king who'll be all-time adored."

With a grim coolness that deeply spoke to the "smaller" cat, Scar reminded them, "Of course, quid pro quo, you're ex_pected_, to take certain duties on board," giving a meaningful slice across the air in front of his maned neck. Right after he did, Scar looked up for just two seconds, his green eyes meeting those of his feline cousin, one orb colored the normal khaki of his kind, the other walleyed, everything but the pupil a viscous, egg-yolk yellow.

The spotted cat gave a quick, lazy nod and flick of his tail in acknowledgement even as Scar extravagantly decreed, "The future is littered with prizes, and though I'm the main addressee, the _point_ that I must emphasize is…"

The observing feline knew what was coming, and wasn't all that surprised to see the lion unpredictably vault off his rock balcony to lunge at one randomly chosen male hyena as the stone began to rather disconcertingly and abruptly spilt open. "You won't get a sniff without me!" Scar roared.

The smaller cat's features twisted into a pleased smirk as, like he'd seen terrified baboons do so many times just before he slew them for sustenance or sport, the hyena scrabbled backwards for a few panicked moments before falling with a yell into the hellish crevice opening below him. Even if they _were_ your "allies", it was still so much fun to watch things die painfully.

Then everything slipped into an ever-intensifying, barely controlled paroxysm of entropy. Geologic, mental, and psychological instability was running rampant all at once. Great columns and mesas of heated stone were bursting out of the rumbling earth, bearing exuberant hyenas atop them. At the apex of the tallest, fastest-growing one was Scar, announcing to his minions, and then crowing in a near-unhinged state, "So prepare for the _coup_ of the century! Be prepared, for the murkiest scam! Meticulous planning, tenacity spanning. Decades of denial, is simply why I'll, be **king** undisputed, respected, saluted, and _seen_ for the wonder I am!" as carmine steam gushed out around his wild, tense form, stark against the brooding denim blue night sky.

Swept away by their lunatic urges, the capering hyenas leapt along the pillars, one playing a marimba of huge bones as two others shook the skeletons of Grant's gazelles to pieces, the spectacle casting frightfully hallucinatory shadows in the infernal light as they did so.

"Yes, my teeth and ambitions are bared," Scar eagerly decreed. "Be prepared!"

His words were echoed back by the fanatical hyenas, snapping out, "Yes, our teeth and ambitions are bared…"

"And claws too," the leopard tom amended with a vulpine grin before flashing around to give a shocked young male hyena's face and neck a clawing merely for the sake of it.

The hyena's sandpapery screams of fear and pain as he ran off were swallowed up by the concluding, "Be prepared!" of the others. And the leopard's grunting laughter rose to mingle with that of the hyenas and the male lion seated on his impressive pedestal.

Scar drew deep breaths for a few moments, looking around at all the hyenas gathered around him. "All right everybody, it's time to go beddy-bye now," he said with mock sweetness. "We have such a _very_ big day tomorrow after all, and it's best to be well rested."

"You heard him, let's all go hit the hay," Shenzi snapped out at her clan. Faces flushed with anticipation and exertion, the hyenas all leapt or skipped down from their perches and ambled off to choose a site to slumber away the rest of the night, fly-whisk tails dangling limply behind them.

Scar waited until the majority of the hyenas were gone, then descended his own elevated pillar in a series of easy bounds. The walleyed leopard tom trotted forward over the stones and bones to greet him, rolling onto his muscular back in a gesture of cool respect before getting back to his paws.

Scar gave a small smile and nod to his part-time servant in reciprocation before saying in delight, "Ahhh, my good friend Nduli. Truly so good of you to come on such short notice."

Like the majority of felids, leopards are solitary, and as such prefer their conversations to be quick and to the point whenever possible. "It's no problem my lord," Nduli remarked with a dismissive slash of an amber forepaw. "I understand you want me to carry out an…assignment for you lord?" he casually stated, eyes shining even as he prodded at a broken piece of bone in seeming disinterest.

"Yes." Scar confirmed. "Very much so, and it has come to my attention that you have past experience in dealing with these creatures."

The leopard tom gave an amused snort before saying, "You'll have to be way more specific than that Scar. I've gleefully cut down _many_ kinds of animals for both food and merriment in my nine years, after all. 'If it's made of meat, the leopard will eat,' as they say."

"It's a primate. A primate that walks on two legs," Scar said in a clipped tone.

Nduli knew very well what type of creature the lion was talking about, and the prospect got his senses tingling. He'd killed several during his time as a landless tom in the time after he'd left his mother and before his unusually epic wanderings had brought him to a territory he could claim as his own.

Their flesh was right on the same esteemed level as monkey and warthog in his book, the sheer recollection causing the walleyed tom to salivate. And they were so, so, painfully easy to slaughter.

Nduli knew however that Scar wouldn't go to the trouble of seeking his aid to put down a human just for the sake of it. He'd been in the lion's employ long enough to grasp that whenever Scar requested him for the thrilling task of a hit, it was because that particular animal had done something to acutely piss him off. Whatever the reason, it always would be a fitting punishment, because while the hyenas liked to merely taunt and terrorize, Nduli loved to taunt, terrorize-and _torture_.

"I certainly have, my soon-to-be-king," Nduli responded, a slow, cunning smile spreading across his stocky face. "How many, where are they, and what did they do to enrage you?" he asked in dry snaps, knowing the drill down pat.

With his lips squeezed into a bitter slash, Scar told Nduli all the information he needed and about how his attempt to have the King's heir slaughtered had been thwarted, the warm air seeming to get slightly hotter whenever the black-maned lion spoke the male's name. "And that's plainly an abundant reason to call for you as my instrument of revenge," Scar smoothly, elegantly told his spotted assassin. "For we both know," he added with a nasty smile, "how you like to kill your victims."

"Slow, bloody, and in every type of agony," Nduli replied with a twisted grin, made all the more terrible by that mad yellow left eye. "Should I go do the deed first thing tomorrow morning?" he expectantly asked.

"No. Not yet," Scar said, shaking his head. "Instead, I've come up with an even better time and place…"

He told Nduli what he had in mind, and the leopard's face lit up with admiration at his master's cleverness. "Ha ha! You are freaking brilliant Scar!" he exulted with a clap of his paws.

"Always the strategist," the lion smoothly grinned. "And _prepared_ for anything," he added, causing Nduli to chuckle appreciatively at the words.

"And now it's going to pay off handsomely at last," Nduli commented with thoughtful pride on Scar's behalf. "Just don't leave your spotted servant on the outside looking in though," he tellingly hinted.

"There'll be meat aplenty for all my loyal followers, believe me," Scar assured him. "And your own kills will forever be off limits from any-kleptoparasitic parties-as well."

It was a very welcome boon, and a delighted Nduli could only say, "Thank you my king."

Scar replied, "I think my deputy deserves at least that much," as he turned and began to walk away. "But now it's time for us too to sleep."

On an impulse, Nduli called out, "Wait! Scar, I want to show you something."

Looking back, Scar wearily sighed before asking, "Can it wait until later?"

"It'll just be a few moments," Nduli insisted, even as he began to draw a crude shape in the dirt with an unsheathed claw. "The humans," he blandly commented, "like to play games with these objects, almost like pieces of bark, that they call cards."

Rolling his eyes, and not really able to discern any sense to the leopard tom's actions or words, Scar dryly inquired, "My good Nduli, does the faint possibility exist that there may be a point, or is this a silly waste of time?"

"There's definitely a point," Nduli assured him as the spotted cat began to carefully make more marks inside the rectangle. "First of all," he stated, "these cards have a value system, a dominance hierarchy if you like."

"Yes, yes, now just summarize," Scar said impatiently.

Continuing at his rushed work of making more nonsensical shapes, Nduil calmly went on, "The first and highest ranking one is called the king. The second one is known as the queen. The third-ranking one is the one I've just very crudely copied," he informed the lean lion, stepping back from his work as he did so. "Now, do you know what this third one is called Scar?" he asked, his expression the picture of shrewdness.

"You know I loathe these types of games," was Scar's surly response.

In the space of a half second, Nduli's demeanor radically changed. Plastering his ears against his deep skull, he gave a cavernous growl and threw his muscled forelegs forward, savagely scuffling in the dirt with razor claws bared. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, he coolly stepped back, sat back on his haunches, and gave Scar a smile worthy of Lucifer. Hypnotic yellow eye gleaming, he rasped out, "It's called…a Jack."

* * *

Send in reviews to increase the net total of happiness in the world! 

After all this hyper-feverish writing I've been doing, I want to tell everyone here that I need to rest for a while before you'll be seeing more. I also need to step back for two other major reasons: One, I'm becoming concerned that our hero and heroine are starting to act somewhat unlike themselves, and the best way to cure that is with a fresh start. Two, I have no idea for what Jack and Ann are going to do 'tommorrow' in this fic, and need to plan the day's activities! I also want to look back and assure myself that this story's plot isn't floundering. But I assure you all, there will be more to come!


	22. A Deceptive Sunrise

Look who's finally back everyone! I'm very sorry about the long delay in getting another chapter up. As I mentioned at the end of Chapter 21 though, I'm currently at a truly difficult stage of this fic, where I have to come up with things for Jack and Ann to do between sunrise and that fateful sunset. Since I'm the kind of writer who makes things up as they go along, you'll just have to bear with me. As for length, I'll try my best to streamline things and not go over more than 3-4 chapters until the action takes off.

Once again, a heartfelt thank you to all my reviewers, both the newcomers and the familiar who have all embraced this exotic tale. There is nothing as motivating.

I have revised the "flow" of this chapter quite heavily. You see, recently I have been reading both Watership Down by Richard Adams, and Firestarter by Stephen King, not just for pleasure, but also to get a sense of what honest-to-God good writing looks and works like. And suddenly, I've realized the shocking truth, that in comparison, I completely s-well, I still have a long way to go. Fortunately, I'm not too proud to learn something from the best, and I've put these new lessons into practice here for the first time, besides redoing my Halloween and Isolation fic in a similar mold.

* * *

_When the sleepy planet comes alive/ and I wake up in the warm sunlight,/ There's a simple harmony to life/ a magic thing. _Life Is A Magic Thing, by Johnny Clegg.

_All the sounds of the earth are like music/…Oh what a beautiful morning/ oh what a beautiful day/ I've got a wonderful feeling/ everything's going my way! _Oh What A Beautiful Morning! From Rodger and Hammerstein's _Oklahoma!_

…_there was good sense to this teleportation, and there was a good shot this time…_Charles Fort, _Lo!_, 1931.

On the plains of Africa, the king of the jungle is perhaps also the king of sloth, the tawny felines sleeping sixteen to twenty hours of their day away on average. Needless to say, sleeping in until noon is very much a time-honored tradition for lions-and as with humans, this is doubly so after a big meal.

Hyperactive cubs however, are rather more willing to be roused by first light. As Simba stirred in her loosely folded arms, trying to extricate himself with all the respectful care a four-month-old cub could muster, Ann was woken up herself in turn. For a few confused moments, the ex-vaudeville actress thought she was seventeen years old again, back at Mr. Newstad's boarding house and sleeping on her rented mattress while the owner's ginger tabby, Chester, warmly snoozed in her arms.

Then the bizarre otherness of Ann's situation all came back to her. It was Simba trying to sneak away, Jack's arms clutching her in turn to his snoring form, a Mayan profile lightly contacting the nape of her neck as he cavernously snored. Looking back at her as he stepped out and furtively began to walk off, the lion prince saw his efforts had failed.

An expression of defeated regret came across his features as he said (quietly, for Jack was still deep in slumber), "Oh man. Sorry for waking you up Ann. Its just that I'm going off to go nurse now, and then play with Nala for a while."

"That's okay," she whispered back. "You don't have to feel caught out. In fact, I think I'll have breakfast shortly myself-after allowing Jack to catch a few more dreams," she added, giving a considerate look back at the slumbering playwright from the corner of her eye.

"Want me to ask Zazu to bring some fruit back for you?" Simba asked. "He'd be happy to do it. Mbili usually comes back around this time too, and I don't think he'd mind staying up for a bit longer to get you some."

Shaking her head, Ann replied, "No, we'll be fine. But thanks anyway."

"Okay," Simba answered before turning and scampering out.

Ann rested her head back on the reed pad. In truth, she _was_ somewhat hungry. The temperature had dropped even more during the night though, and it had rained like tomcats for about 90 minutes while they slept besides, so it was rather cold outside the cave. Not in any major hurry to face that chill, what Ann really wanted to savor right now was the heat; the heat from Jack's chest, his arms folded under her breastbone, his rigid ankles crossed with hers, the heat from the weakened coals of the fire only two feet behind them, and the heat trapped by the cave itself. It was a superb feeling, and for about fifteen minutes Ann Darrow just basked in it, in no hurry to go anywhere or do anything, letting the warmth occupy her body and soul.

The thin, muted milky light silently filtering into the cave became slightly stronger. It caused a sublime inspiration to bloom within Ann as she noticed it. Turning on her axis, like a snake righting itself after being flipped over, she woke Jack by kissing him on his lean cheek as she simultaneously ran her fingers through his thatch of hair.

His reaction was supremely shocking. Ann had no time to react before Jack's eyes flew open, wild glistening green marbles as his hands rocketed out and seized both her thin arms in a steely grip just above the elbow. "Christ no, leave us alone!" he pleaded in desperate terror. "Don't take her from me you demons!"

Aghast, mouth open, Ann wrenched herself as best she could into a half-kneeling, half-seated stance, tugging backwards against the clamping grip of Jack's long fingers as a wildebeest cow strains counter to the direction of the crocodile biting into her bearded throat. It just made her boyfriend clench his fingers all the more tightly. Ann knew that he was back in a place of strangling terror and grotesque humanoid forms, resisting hellish adversaries, and she wasn't going to allow him to be trapped there if _she_ could help it, even as she felt her own nails dimpling the flesh of her palms at the recollection.

"Jack!" she yelled. "Jack Driscoll, snap out of it!" she commanded, shoving forwards against his sculpted arms and chest as hard as she could. "We're safe, you don't have to be scared anymore!" A change seeped into the playwright's eyes then. For several seconds, vacant and perplexed, the man she'd come to love wasn't looking back at all. Then the familiar, reserved, appraising intelligence returned, an umbrella of relief glossing it over equally swiftly.

Reaching forwards, Ann lightly ran her fingertips across Jack's brow to his left cheekbone while cradling his head with the other. His skin was beaded with a wintry condensation-and it wasn't dew. His first panting words were "Oh good Christ. Are you okay doll?" he asked, meeting her gaze as he reflexively started to sit up. Even on the heels of an awful nightmare, his first concern was for her.

"Yes, I'm okay Jack," she soothingly responded, stroking his nape. "We're both okay, thanks to you and how wonderfully brave you are," she said with a warm smile.

"Yeah, of course you are," he conceded, falling back with a thin sigh of gratitude. "Hope I didn't hurt you in my panicked visions."

"You grabbed my arms in a death grip about as strong as Kong's for a few seconds, but there's no harm done. Gave me a major surprise when I tried to wake you up though."

"Sorry about that. Lord only knows unfortunately, how long we'll continue to be woken up by bone-chilling dreams of that time. But what did you want to have me up at"-he cocked his wrist to examine his watch-"half past five for?"

"I wanted to see if you wanted to watch the sun rise with me," Ann carefully ventured as she stood and thoroughly stretched out her limbs, encouraging the dispersal of all the soreness and kinks her slender frame had acquired from sleeping on a reed mattress over a base of solid stone. "It'll be beautiful, not to mention romantic too," she invitingly prodded, thinking briefly of the sunset with Kong.

"That's sweet of you, but not today Ann," he responded, snarled ebony hair twitching from side to side as he shook his head. "After the past few days, I could very much use a chance to sleep in."

Ann felt her mouth corners fall as disappointment and grudging understanding both danced about within her, then came to a compromise. "I didn't say you couldn't Jack. You can see it come up with me now, then go back to sleep later," she quietly pointed out. "Besides, who'll keep me warm in the cold air?" she asked, a theatric fretfulness in her voice while her petite ivory feet slid into the mysteriously provided pair of reed slippers.

"Okay," Jack reluctantly conceded, sitting up and blearily rubbing his eyes before getting to his feet and extending his own limbs in turn. "I'll come and enjoy the view with you. I can't allow my angel to catch her death of cold out there, after all," he tenderly joked as he stood up, and then yawned.

A warm feeling spread through her body despite the cold morning air, and Ann gave Jack a soft smile as she assured him, "You'll find it was worth it. You'll see."

Skirting the fire, they both ambled out onto the mammoth spur of granite in the hushed, still blue light, pointing like a spearhead directly at where the sun was due to appear. Nothing seemed to stir, or make a sound. The constant croaking of the square-marked toads, the whining, snappy barks of the twitchy little cat-eyed house geckos scrambling vertically over the rock on their sticky ridged feet, and the chalkboard shrilling of the pale-hued tree crickets-all had ceased in this crisp, mist-shrouded limbo before the plains woke up. And oh my, it _was_ good and cold indeed! During the night, the temperature had fallen around forty degrees compared to what it had been just twelve hours ago. The stone too, like everything else, was coated in a crystalline film of dewdrops, which Ann knew would chill her bottom to sit on.

_I guess I'll just have to put up with it,_ she thought resignedly before lowering herself down. As she folded her legs though, Jack wrapped one of his huge dark hands around her left hand, lightly pulling at it to get her attention.

"Say Ann, we don't both have to sit on cold hard granite if we have to," he casually mentioned.

"Quite true," she nodded. "I'll take some of the bedding out here." Why hadn't she thought of that before? As she began to stand, Jack held up a hand to stay her.

"Actually, I meant it as more of an offer, in that we _both_ don't have to freeze our butts off on the rock,  
he specified with a gentle smirk. "If that's okay by you," he added.

She got the thoughtful picture, and gave him a charmed smile, saying "It most certainly is," before seating herself on her boyfriend's lower thighs, partially sidesaddle so as not to block his view. His left arm reached out to loosely encircle her belly, and Ann lightly rested the back of her head against his right shoulder. "On with the fireworks then," she whispered to no one in particular. Jack just wearily nodded from above her head, square chin brushing her curls.

As they both watched, the sky's hue changed in unhurried, theatrical waves of diffusing color, from navy blue, to eggplant purple, to amethyst, to lilac, to primrose, and then to carmine as the earth kept rotating towards the sun. Then the solar globe itself appeared, swelling imperially like an enormous golden bubble as it started to levitate over the horizon.

It wasn't the only thing blossoming into the cool, intoxicatingly wild air. A white-browed coucal in the dense vegetation growing on the curved west side sent out its burbling brook tune, rising and falling like a bouncing ball. An alpine swift roosting with its flock on the rock monolith's side pierced the air with a protracted, yelling trill. Almost questioning in its soft tone, a zebra-striped hoopoe, overwintering from Germany, airily went "hoop, hoop." The rich, fluting warbling of a pair of cliff chats sprung up on its heels. From within a mimosa bush, a malachite sunbird uttered gentle fluting notes, following it up with high-pitched squeaks. A gray wagtail in the grass below them announced its presence with a jingling call that sounded to Ann like coins in someone's pocket. Skulking furtively in the croton bush, a tropical boubou and his mate performed a duet, the timing of their bell-like calls so flawless that they sounded like only one bird to the ear.

And then, as the sky began to turn to light purple, the dawn chorus really got down to business, veritably erupting into the once-still East African morning. The air and Ann's ears pleasantly throbbed and rang with a symphony of barbets and cuckoos, kingfishers and bee-eaters, hornbills and longclaws, warblers and the silver-voiced larks. And from every single direction around her and Jack, above the climbing crescendo of shrikes and flycatchers, chats, starlings, rollers, mousebirds, wheatears, cisticolas, pipits, weaverbirds, widowbirds, sparrows, canaries, and oxpeckers, the joyous celebratory purring of the doves, as gentle and innocent as she was, caressed Ann Darrow's eardrums.

With its now more than suitable soundtrack, throwing the wild olives and acacias into sharp bas-relief, the rising sun, seeming to shiver itself in the dissipating mist, was majestically pulled up into a bright red sky: red as a ripe apple, red as a male cardinal, red as a stop sign, red as a Maasai cloak-red as arterial blood. The sausage trees and the termite mounds, a forty-strong herd of stately elephants, the figures of two hulking white rhinos, and a great braying stream of zebras stood out on the horizon before them, all razor-edged black shadow puppets against the flaming Technicolor backdrop. Out of all the many surpassing sights this planet has to offer, one of the most dramatically awesome has to be a sunrise in East Africa.

To a marveling Ann Darrow, it was very much without a doubt one of the most breathtaking, almost moving, things she'd ever seen. No sunset on the East Coast could ever compare to the splendor and spell of this one! And oh, was she deeply grateful that the two of them were still here to witness it at all, and hear the birds lifting up their voices in harmonious diversity.

A small part of her also felt highly gladdened about the fact that, as far as she knew, Kong was still alive wherever he was and probably had enjoyed a sunrise himself several hours previously. He was gone from her life now like so many others, true, and that was a disappointment, but she couldn't have stayed with the ape evermore on his island anyway. A separation of some kind would've been inevitable.

Kong continued to live and roam free in his jungle, and that cheering knowledge was what Ann focused on. Yes, she was pos-I-tive-ly _sure_ that from here on in, the good things in her life would finally last after all and that it wasn't so much false hope. All things considered under these fantastic circumstances, it looked as if she was finally getting to land on the "good" spaces in the Game of Life.

As they drank in the awesome sight together, a flock of lesser flamingos, necks thrust forward and legs trailing behind, flew out of the east to land about a mile away in the small lake's shallows, backlit by the violently saffron sun. It was the superb pink icing on an already enchantingly beautiful sight, Ann marveled silently. If the two New Yorkers had been Swahili however, they would've feared it to their marrow, seeing it as a very, very bad omen indeed.

But both were innocent of that superstition. "Nice to see that my slaughter of one of their fellows hasn't completely driven them away from the place," Jack joked with a playfulness that was tinged with shame, causing Ann to laugh equally awkwardly. It had been and would continue to be a necessary evil, unfortunately. _Situation ethics_, Mr. Hayes had called it when he'd discussed a few of his experiences in the Great War with her one night. It was saddening to think about how now Kong had evidently "used" situation ethics on the first mate.

The sight of a plumed shadow in her peripheral vision caught her attention and redirected her darkening thoughts, and she turned slightly to the left to get a better fix on it. Was it Zazu? No, it was much too big. Curious, she sat erect and looked over her shoulder at what was currently soaring right above them in the sky. For a few grasping, nonsensical moments, Ann thought that she was somehow seeing a duplicate bird shadow gliding high above her and Jack's heads.

But then her eyes informed her that it was a real bird, an aristocratic and completely jet-black Verreaux's eagle that gracefully swooped down to land atop the regally impressive rectangular stone column looming above them. Once its wings were folded, the avian shadow, made tiny by distance, walked forward to the brink between stone and space, parked itself, and also gazed out towards the horizon, seeming for the entire world to be enjoying the view almost as much as Ann was.

Jack too, had turned with her to see the powerful sable bird more clearly, its figure crowning Pride Rock like a diadem. "He clasps the crag with crooked hands/ Close to the sun in lonely lands/ Ring'd with the azure world, he stands," he whispered in thoughtful admiration. "I've always enjoyed Tennyson," he explained offhandedly before wearily shifting around to get back to the morning's main performance.

"I like that poem myself," Ann mentioned distractedly while she continued to take the flaming horizon in.

As is the habit of all proper fireworks displays, the branding-iron red solar spectacle that was taking place in front of them followed the pattern of sunrises near the equator and petered out within the hour.

"So tell me Jack, was being able to see a sight like this worth being prodded out of bed for?" Ann asked buoyantly as turquoise blue began to diffuse downwards towards the horizon and the crimson red faded into coral pink, slipping downwards slightly and casting her eyes upwards to see his face.

"Absolutely was," he nodded. "Nothing like starting the day off with a gorgeous sunrise to set eyes on and a gorgeous girl to hold in your lap," he said with a sincere smile.

She felt her lips form a fond curve before making a shuffling turn to face the writer and good-humoredly inquiring, "So, what's the schedule for our second day in Oz now Jack?" Her chiming giggles and Jack's laughter rang out at the same instant to braid together in the cool dewy air.

His teeth showed in a crooked grin as Jack managed to get himself together enough to shoot back "You mean this place where we're currently living with the not-so-cowardly lions?" nodding towards the main cave as he did so.

Ann placed her fingertips over her lips as she said, giggling, "That's exactly what I meant Tin Man!"

A chuckling peal of laughter flew from Jack's mouth. "Say, you think I'm the Tin Man now?" he asked in mock accusation, eyes shining emeralds. "Must have to do with my height and bravado. In that case, I guess it's clear who has the role of Dorothy then," he rejoined, smirking through his growing beard as he pointed at her.

Taking on a more thoughtful expression then as Ann laughed, Jack plowed his field of black hair with the fingers of one hand, dryly declaring "Personally though Ann, I'm all for a lazy, whichever-way-the-wind-blows day after constantly fighting through Skull Island's jungles and swamps, if that's okay by you."

Lightly puffing air out her nostrils, she fervently agreed, replying, "Trust me Jack, the idea of a lazy day sounds more than okay by me."

"And no one knows how to appreciate them better than us lions," Mbalamwezi playfully, almost proudly, said from behind them. Both humans turned around in tandem as the lioness walked towards them on her huge padded paws, the rest of the pride drowsily strolling out from behind her into the hushed syrupy golden light. Mufasa and Sarabi came out last, possessing as always that aura of sleek dignity and beauty about them. Clad only in a filthy, dirt-stained, tattered, sweaty slip and tap pants, hair unwashed and scraggly, Ann couldn't help but feel like a shabby proletarian among aristocrats for a minute. She didn't have much, but she'd always tried to look as decent as possible.

"Good morning Jack. Good morning Ann," Mufasa said in his pleasant rumble. "How are you both doing?"

"Good morning Mufasa old boy. We're doing just swell," Jack replied while he gave a quick nod of his head in a truncated bow of respect. "Ann managed to convince me to come out into the cold with her instead of sleeping in, and we've just finished watching a truly beautiful sunrise together."

"It _is_ a magnificent sight to see, isn't it?" Mufasa commented, nodding thoughtfully as the pride's lionesses rubbed their heads and foreheads together around them in a morning greeting, giving cordial humming purrs as they did so. It didn't escape Ann's notice that their bellies were swollen with meat, or that she could smell their carrion perfume in the still air, and a small instinctive fraction of her felt uneasy for a second or four.

"You bet it is," Jack agreed. "I've rarely seen the like."

"Hey Ann! Hey Jack!" Nala exuberantly greeted as she and Simba came bouncing out of the cave and bounded over to their human saviors and friends.

"Morning you two!" Ann hailed, the enthusiasm of the cubs and her delight at seeing them turning into a great wide smile.

Without even bothering to slow down or ask permission, Nala gleefully sprung at Ann's side, the lion cub wrapping her forelimbs around the satin-sheathed torso in an invitation to play. Happy to accept, Ann laughingly pushed back, letting Nala mouth and wrestle down and clasp the "prey" of graceful human arms to her strong almond-colored chest. Jack regarded them both for a few seconds, and through her glee, Ann could discern a smile of loving pride and fond contentment gracing his features.

Then it was replaced by a different type of smile altogether when Simba excitedly asked him, "Would you like to play with me too Jack?"

"I'd love to, little buddy," Jack responded. And just like he'd done in the waterhole the afternoon before, Ann saw her playwright drop his typical diffidence once more, engaging Simba in a whole different usage of the word _play_.

Sarafina strolled up to them, and Ann could perceive the lionesses' silent presence near her as she frolicked with her daughter, both wildly chuckling and merrily giggling in unison. After patiently waiting for a bit, the tan lioness put forth, "Sorry to ruin the fun Nala, but it's time for you to come with me and Mbalamwezi now."

"But mom, can't I play with Ann for just a bit longer?" Nala pleaded from her supine position, paws still folded around Ann Darrow's forearm. It couldn't fail to make Ann recall the hundreds of times she must've requested the same gift of time from her own mother, and she inwardly chuckled.

"No Nala," Sarafina responded, a slightly commanding edge in her normally cheery, bubbly voice. "Mbalamwezi and I are leaving to do vulture duty now, and you need to come with us."

"Alright," Nala sighed reluctantly before righting herself and walking over to her mother as Ann pulled her pale arm away, letting the cub's tail lash through her fingers while she did so.

Looking up from where Simba was mouthing his watch, Jack commented, "Going off to keep the vultures from swiping more than their fair share of meat, I presume?"

"That's correct," Sarafina confirmed from over her rolling shoulder blade as she trotted down the stone ramp with Nala. And indeed, Ann could see the far-off black specks of a few hooded and white-backed vultures starting to make their descending spirals over where she presumed the lions must've made their double kill as the trio of lions picked up their collective pace.

Halting his play with Jack temporarily, Simba shouted, "See you later Nala!"

"You too Simba!" Nala replied from over her shoulder.

The morning greetings among themselves completed, each remaining lioness ambled up to them both one by one, rubbing her great tawny square head against Jack's flank first-and Ann recognized, without any annoyance at all, that it was because her fella was the male here-then hers, giving a gentle curving flick of the tail across the chest while the cats all bid them a good day in succession. Then each lioness deserted the stone stage, the great felines separating from each other to search out the ideal location for soaking up the acutely angled rays of the morning sun.

Perceiving a tight, sticky sensation in her throat and stomach, Ann stood up again, telling Jack, "I could stand taking a good long drink at the waterhole. It would be a good idea for you to come and have one as well Jack, before it gets hot out."

"I'll agree there," he replied, scrubbing at his left eye with a ring finger before breaking off playtime with the lion prince and raising his tall body off the rock.

"See you in a bit Jack! Come play with me some more when you're back, okay?" Simba requested hopefully.

"Sorry Simba, but I'm afraid I'll be going right back to bed when I return," he regretfully answered from beside Ann.

"I'll be happy to step in and play with you though," Sarabi volunteered from her reclining position before the lion prince could feel so much as a wisp of disappointment. Her energetic son wasted no time in running over and pouncing at his mother's tail tuft, biting down on the mysterious horny nail that all lions have concealed among that coarse black bit of fur. Like the human appendix, or the tendon that constantly clicks against the ankle bones of caribou as if to measure out time, it is one of those rare structures in the animal world that seems to have no apparent purpose behind it.

Ann couldn't help smiling in vicarious joy at Simba's joyous romping. It was cut short when she noticed something flash then over Jack's angular face. "Speaking of water and drink, let's make sure that we have something to eat for breakfast when we return," he said, turning to walk right to the back of the smaller cave, retrieving the bloodied carcass of the flamingo that had donated its feathers for their bedding, and its breast meat for their bellies.

As Ann waited and watched for a few patient minutes, Jack put more wood on the glowing orange coals to resurrect the flames, then lowered the bird down onto the grid of branches breastbone up. "That should be good and cooked by the time we're done," he remarked before rejoining her.

Ann softly, briefly ran her fingertips across his flank before picking her steps down the series of granite outcrops to the grass, Jack close behind, their elongated shadows reaching out behind them on the grass. The liquid, citron colored rays of the sun, shining directly on their skin, were deliciously warm, and Ann noticed that she and Jack weren't the only ones relishing in the sensation as they began to go down the natural path cutting through the endless lawn, each blade of grass tipped with a diamond of dew.

Still perched on the top of Pride Rock, the Verreaux's eagle had stretched out his wings like the cape of a hero in one of the pulp magazines, every black feather absorbing the heat. Each rock and bit of bare ground seemed to be occupied by at least three of the twitchy little striped skinks, the chocolate brown lizards adorned on each side by a ribbon of tan-white that reached from behind the eye to halfway down the tail.

About 20 yards away, another flat outcrop held the squat lethal form of a puff adder, the snake's body sporting a reticulated livery of tan and black and white and mud-brown that made it all too easy to almost literally stumble upon. Ann uneasily squelched a shudder before averting her eyes and moving on. At a derelict termite mound pockmarked with their holes, a troop of banded mongooses, in what seemed like a winsome imitation of soldiers lined up for inspection, all stood erect to face the sun, Ann noting the sweet sight of the seated alpha female contentedly nursing her quartet of kits.

Some of the night's creatures were still out roaming, heading off to find a safe place to sleep throughout the day, or remaining active an hour or two late for the chance at one more meal. A striped hyena, a rarer, solitary, and more peaceable relative of the beasts she and Jack had stood up to in defense of the cubs, crossed their path 100 yards before them in an ungainly lope, headed to the cave where he slept, nestled among the boulders of a kopje two and a half miles away. His shaggy mousy gray coat was tinted with straw yellow, abundantly marbled with thick vertical stripes and compressed semicircles of a shade of brown so warm as to nearly be black.

He was actually a rather cute animal, Ann thought to herself. Her vision then caught the sudden movement of two small, dark elongated bodies thrashing in the grass, about seven feet off her right. It was a plumbeous centipede eater, a thin pewter-colored snake only about 15 inches long and adapted to a diet of the hundred-legged creatures.

Held crosswise in its mouth was a flailing Tanzanian tiger centipede-a 9-inch long burnt orange giant banded with black-frantically biting at the snake's hide with its huge venom-inoculating fangs. At the realization of what she was seeing, a galvanized Ann, flashing back to the memory of a far larger cousin's feelers caressing the tissues of her own mouth, squealed in revolted fright as she shied back against Jack's body in the manner of a spooked cart horse.

"What is it Ann? What's wrong?" he asked urgently as he drew her close to him.

"That!" she replied, only able to give the centipede eater and especially its namesake catch half-looks as she pointed at them, heart pounding.

She felt Jack's muscles tense up themselves as he himself gave a strained, thin series of breaths. She knew once more that he was recollecting that stinking, terrible pit of massive crabs and insects that had almost taken his life. The lead-scaled snake was now subduing the centipede with its weak venom, the writhing of its futilely biting prey (for centipede-eaters are immune to the flesh-dissolving poison of their quarry) becoming weaker and slower itself.

"As far as I'm concerned," Ann commented in disgust, as she pursed her lips and swallowed before vacating the miniature battlefield, "that snake can eat as many of those nasty things as it pleases."

"I'm very much with you Ann. Christ." Jack heartily agreed as he inhaled hard to soothe his nerves, and turned on his heels as well, both humans progressing along the worn path in the dewy grass. She had the sense that he'd somehow managed to wrestle down a profound urge to scream.

"All I can say," she said reflectively, mind still stained by residual fear, "is that when we get back to New York, there's no way Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, or even Mr. Ripley will possibly be able to hold a candle to the experiences we've undergone, for better-or for worse," she added.

"And how to that," Jack sleepily, gravely nodded.

As they continued onwards towards the ascending sun, the small lake and its olive-green reedbeds once more expanded before them. The distinctive figures of the doum palms reached into the morning sky, the rickety-looking trunks splitting into similarly thin U's which divided several more times before being thatched with the green clumps of fronds, reminding Ann of the stereotyped trees that she drew in school as a girl, either for art time or as a way to illustrate her family tree. Of course, typhus and her mother's heinous cowardice had taken both school and family away, the first of far too many things…

_For crying out loud Ann Darrow, don't you start dwelling on that type of subject again!_ _You're safe and sitting pretty in what's virtually the Garden of Eden for Christ's sake, _she fiercely admonished herself.

_But I just hope to God that nothing bad is going to happen to my Adam out here,_ she nervously, privately amended, unable to keep from tensing her lips and throat muscles ever so slightly as she turned to steal a glance at Jack.

Perceptive as ever, he frowned and looked at her, saying, "Is something eating you?"

"No," Ann fibbed, a smooth smile coming to her. "I'm just admiring how handsome you are." The deceptive words were meant to reassure her every bit as much as Jack, and to her self-satisfaction they worked. Jack just gave a small smirk in proud acknowledgement before Ann returned her attentions to the lake and lily ponds, now within clear view.

Already, the birds were busy. Three pairs of refined, surpassingly gorgeous gray crowned cranes elegantly strolled and pecked through the shorter reeds and long grasses on the marsh's periphery, their trademark shocks of stiff yellow feathers seeming like sunbursts that had somehow been magically frozen and pasted to the head of each bird, providing a stunning foil to the somber gray-black cape and white flanks.

Two angelically white African spoonbills, sporting faces the color of fresh blood, swept and dredged the shallows on either side for frogs, snails, and insects, while a noble-looking fish eagle, strongly reminding Ann of her equally majestic national bird-except for the milk chocolate breast and black eyes-gave a glass-edged shriek from his perch in a fever tree.

As always, the tinkling calls of the wildly patterned reed frogs were ringing out into the air as they kept their bulging eyes open for midges and other small insects. They in turn were being stalked by the charcoal-hued black crakes, wading through the shallows on their ridiculously huge, splayed strawberry pink feet, and the various kinds of chunky, rainbow-plumaged kingfishers, from pygmy to giant. A northern shoveler drake, his head a shining bottle-green, chattered and swept his spatula bill through the water in the midst of a group of knob-billed ducks, ermine-headed waterfowl that paid no heed to the craggy, green-brown Nile crocodiles basking after the cool night on the shore nearby. The gnarled snaggle-toothed monsters frankly bore too much of a resemblance to the tyrant lizards that had nearly extinguished the actresses' life in their iron maiden jaws, and she did not find it any easier to look at them than the centipede.

Some members of the ever varying but always present waterhole country club were here too, a ten-strong family group of sail-eared elephants pumping water into their baggy trunks and squirting it into their upcurved mouths, a stocky zebra stallion and the seven mares that formed his fledgling band, a lordly male waterbuck with his six does and a regal set of corrugated horns, and a pair of elegant male bushbuck, their coats a pleasing combination of warm chestnut above and pure black below, horns no more than an unassuming, simple elongated spiral.

The elephant herd's matriarch, her right ear bearing a distinctive chevron-shaped tear near the bottom and boasting tusks that seemed to reach down to her knees, noticed them first, raising her trunk and giving a squealing trumpet of recognition. Right on its heels, the rest of the old cow's herd, even the two calves, did precisely the same thing, and it sounded to Ann Darrow remarkably like a salute. "Salutations Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow, our human heroes of the Pridelands!" the matriarch said fondly in her slow thunderous voice.

Both she and Jack acutely felt themselves in the spotlight and perplexed for a bit all at once. Ann couldn't recall having seen this elephant at the convention of beasts the afternoon before. She did understand though, with a modest, blushing pride that this elephant was very much referring to how they'd both saved the lion cubs by calling them heroes.

"Yeah, Zazu and Nala have been telling every animal they've met, and they've in turn been telling every animal _they've_ met all about how you two stood up to those hyenas. Didn't take any guff from them, did ya?" the waterbuck stag commented approvingly.

"So that's how the news got all over town that fast," Jack said thoughtfully.

"What's a town?" one of the zebra mares asked in puzzlement, clumsily scratching her neck with her right back hoof in the manner of a dog.

"A word that'll be as hard for you to grasp as that guff one is to us," Ann replied, her nose wrinkling at the pungent secretions that waterproofed the shaggy donkey brown coats of the waterbuck.

"Oh. You didn't get it. Guff means insolence, rudeness," a waterbuck doe helpfully explained.

"Which fits the hyenas to a tee," another one muttered.

Addressing Jack, one of the bushbuck asked in wonder, "Is it true that you actually _picked up_ a rock and smashed one of the hyenas in the mouth with it?"

"Quite true," Jack nodded, Ann seeing his lips curve into a slow, lopsided smirk at the memory. She thought it rather funny too in hindsight, plus a deeply sweet display of how Jack was ready and willing to defend her honor as a lady. And indeed, as if reading her thoughts, he added in a deadpan tone, "But they fully deserved it. No one is going to verbally or physically harm my dame and get away with it."

"Isn't that just so sweet?" one of the charmed zebra mares whispered to another.

Both bushbuck males meanwhile, were stunned. They looked at Jack, then Ann, and then each other, drawling out in amazement, "_Dduuuuddddeeee!!_

Not for the first time, Ann's intellect was at a loss for what this weird slang word meant, looking at Jack's drowsy green eyes for any inkling. They told her he didn't know either as the bushbuck pair burst out laughing at each other, exclaiming "Dude! We both said 'Dude' at the same time! That was so cool!"

Uttering a resigned sigh, Jack gave voice to Ann's utter confusion at all these alien slang words, saying simply, "Sometime soon I'm just going to have to sit down with one of you fellas, and have you coach us in all your funny Pridelands slang vocabulary so that we're not left in the dark."

"Well, I can promise you that you'll _always_ be able to understand what we say in _our_ conversations," the matriarch teased as airily as she could with her deep voice. "We elephants are far too dignified and mature to use poor terms like those after all," she stated, tiny gray-brown eyes twinkling with humor, and that perpetual knowing smile becoming even more pronounced.

"Oh yeah Sikio? How about implementing the capacity to maintain the customary seal betwixt palate and mandible?" one of the bushbuck shot back good-naturedly, showing the world that he could be eloquent when he wanted to.

Even if it's at their own expense, elephants have a great appreciation for dry humor, and Sikio laughed at the clever retort, the characteristic rumbling chuckles of her kind twining with Ann's higher-pitched ones. The zebras brayed in mirth as well.

"Seriously though," the muscled waterbuck stag went on, "You've both done a truly heroic thing by saving the cubs, and we'd love to hear all about it from you."

Ann found herself blushing in a weird sort of embarrassment, although an appraising part of her had no idea why she should be feeling that way about such a brave deed so well done. "Just let us have a good long drink first, and then we can tell you all about it," she told them, letting them know to wait by raising a slim finger just before she walked to the edge of the crystal-clear lake, knelt down, and drank.

Behind her, she sensed Jack turning to look at something else, and draw himself up in sudden disbelief, saying in soft amazement, "Sweet Christ. Okay, now this is officially becoming spooky."

Sucking in another gulp of water, Ann's head flicked around as she asked, "What's becoming spoo-" But her words were cut off as she saw something that was to her both quite eerie, and yet strangely, not entirely unexpected.

It was another calabash filled with hot water, sending profuse amounts of steam into the morning air. And like the day before, it was accompanied by another tortoise shell, probably the same one. "Looks like our benefactor-or benefact_ors_-from yesterday were here again," Jack said, rising on tiptoe and joining Ann in carefully scanning the marsh once more as she gave a small, distant mumble of agreement.

Same as last time, she didn't see so much as a glimpse of whoever had put them there. Nothing at all. Nada. There was a faint pathway leading away this time however, evidence of where the shining dewdrops had fallen after being disturbed to leave the dark reeds prematurely bare.

Ann immediately decided not to even consider following them up. Someone or _something_ far more intelligent than even these superbly brilliant animals was watching them, putting out these medicating offerings as a way of aiding her and Jack from afar, and apparently right under their noses. Their evasive behavior was a mystery, and it privately made Ann a little nervous. More than a little. After all, on Skull Island she'd stumbled across-well, more like been _terrorized_ by-more mysteries than she could stand.

* * *

From the shelter of a yellow-barked acacia's crown, Rafiki softly, breathily chuckled to himself in satisfaction as he watched Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow walk back towards their temporary domicile at Pride Rock. Although it had caused some more mild puzzlement and uncertainty at first, the two humans had as hoped, used the salve and hot water he'd provided to treat their assortment of gashes, abrasions and other injuries, scrubbing scabs and dirt away with the chunk of warthog hide. This time though, instead of last afternoon's jubilant, playful bath, the pair had simply flicked and dribbled water over themselves as they squatted on the lake's edge to rinse the wounds out. 

The mandrill also had to hand it to himself about how he'd slipped through the reeds-not once, but twice-and placed the bowls there so stealthily that not even the other animals there had noticed. Mr. Driscoll had evenly questioned them several times if they'd seen or smelt the creature that had set them out, and not even the elephants, with their height and smelling abilities, could offer an answer.

His attention was caught once more by a wind through the fever tree's crown. It wasn't the wind that normally blew across the Pridelands all day. This one carried a familiar, aged presence with it.

"Oh, hello dere Mwaguzi," Rafiki said in greeting.

_Hello Rafiki. Our two humans have sure made quite an impact in the Circle of Life just like I foresaw, haven't they? Especially in ensuring that the circles of two particular lion cubs will continue,_ the late shaman said tellingly.

"Oh yes, yes, day certainly have," Rafiki gratefully replied, nodding heartily as he did so. Thank Ngai that his profound interuniversal mistake had occurred after all, otherwise Simba and Nala wouldn't be here anymore now! "Kungwi, dat chatterbox of a spotted eagle owl, claims to have seen da whole ding himself, and has been telling anyone who will listen-including me," the mandrill informed his master with a small smile.

_Ah, Kungwi. You've told me about him before. The Circle would be a poorer place without gossipers like him, _Mwaguzi smoothly said with a grunt of amusement._ But as for Miss Darrow and Mr. Driscoll, I must admit that even _I'm_ pleasantly surprised by the magnitude of what they eventually ended up doing in that graveyard. They played their role to a degree that nobody, even I, could've anticipated. _

"Well, der bravery doesn't personally surprise me," Rafiki remarked. "You saw and know as well as I do what dose poor souls faced on dat horrid island. But Mwaguzi my teacher, what do you mean dat you couldn't have anticipated how well dey would serve deir reason for being in de Pridelands?"

_Do not tell me you've forgotten what I've taught you about looking into the future Rafiki,_ Mwaguzi answered with mock sternness. _You remember, don't you?_

"Yes, I remember," Rafiki replied with a somewhat sheepish nod. "You only told me several times after all, how future events can be substantially changed by any random permutation at any time, and you can only pick up on de general aura of what is going to occur later."

_Nicely done,_ his old master responded fondly. _Even a shaman possessing especially keen powers of prophesy, like me, finds it difficult to see much of a clean-cut view into the future due to these unknown, random events. In fact, they're really the only reason why both Mr. Driscoll and Miss Darrow survived Skull Island _at all_, when they rightly should be dead several times over. _

_Speaking of that island however, it will soon be time for you, my former pupil, to reveal yourself to the two of them and rectify your mistake._

"How soon should I do dat Mwaguzi?" Rafiki calmly asked, accepting the fact that he'd broken the rules without any fuss.

_I'd say at sunset tonight actually. Clearly, they've served their fortuitous purpose, and need to go back to their home universe as soon as possible, as you well know._

Nodding in agreement, Rafiki said, "I know dat they will be scared of me, to say nuting of being very angry when I tell dem, but it's plain dat every minute de humans are here and out of deir proper timeline is an enormous paradox, one dat de orderly functioning of deir universe and dis one cannot abide for long. I must remove dat burden and set de balance straight."

_Right. And just to make things even more pressing, there's an additional, grave danger that they'll both be facing very soon. _

"What sort of probl-Never mind, I shall look into it myself," the mandrill muttered, looking up into the leaves above him with half-closed eyes and probing far past the present moment. Abruptly, he gasped in true alarm at the vague wispy signals his receivers were picking up.

Drawing a shuddering breath, he stared fixedly ahead, saying in apprehension as he agitatedly stroked his beard, "Something very terrible and evil will happen to both humans around sunset today, something dat will threaten deir dery lives…particularly Mister Driscoll's."

_That's exactly it, and there's even more. Rafiki, _Mwaguzi flatly told him in a tone that was both grave and possessed an uncharacteristic reedy note of fear, _it is quite probable that Jack will die from the horrible damage he sustains in that desperately dangerous situation._

The implications of what would result from Jack Driscoll dying outside his native timeline and universe sent Rafiki into a state of slack-jawed, stupefied horror. Finding the strength to pull himself together, he urgently asked his late teacher, "When will dis bad ting happen? And where? I must get to them right before it does!"

_I don't know,_ Mwaguzi replied helplessly. _We both know from what we've seen and heard through the mist that it'll take place around sunset, but I don't think even Ngai himself can discern the rest. But if you aren't able to get to them in time before the danger does…oh Rafiki, you'd better have an excellent avenue in place for getting that man and his kike aggressive medical help-if he's still alive. And let's __**pray**__ that he will be!!!_

There was a fear-clenched, despairing silence for a minute. He didn't want to contemplate the chain reaction that that sort of event would likely trigger. Then Rafiki, shaman and healer for King Mufasa and inadvertent courier for a couple of human lovers, forced himself to say the terrifying words out loud. "Because if Jack Driscoll dies, not only will it be devastating to poor Miss Darrow…a colossal paradox like dat could well irreversibly devastate and rupture de structure of _all_ de universes."

* * *

To quote one of the Latino Adelie penguins to Lovelace in Happy Feet, "Any better?" 


	23. Men's Business

For all my readers who haven't lost hope, your prayers are answered with another chapter! Also, I finally have a coherent plot going in my head now, and it'll be just two more, or maybe even one more-chapters until the frenetic action takes off, I'm pleased to report.

* * *

_"I love you-those three words have my life in them."_ Alexandrea, spoken to King Nicholas the Third. 

_Don't go to war without weapons. _Swahili Proverb.

As warm and pleasant as the sun's rays massaging his bare back, Ann's chiming laughter filtered into Jack's ears as he fuzzily awoke. Checking his watch once more in the shadow cast by his own torso as he blinked, the playwright saw that it was already close to eleven, allowing for differences in time zones. That was a further four more deeply appreciated hours gone towards paying off Skull Island's punishing sleep dept, he noted. In fact, after a total of 16-18 hours of slumber, Jack actually felt more or less alert again.

Despite napping on only a thin veneer between him and the rock, one composed of a portion of the reeds and grass from their main bed in the cave, and both his shirts, Jack was surprised to feel very little discomfort from it as he rose to his feet. _Whatever is in that salve being put out for us,_ he thought,_ it works for quite a while, painful as it is to apply. _As he'd hoped, healing had also been further encouraged by how he'd deliberately exposed his abused back to the African sun. Already, the smaller scratches and insect bites-the welts of the bloodsucking ones, not the gashes of the carnivorous _monsters_- were essentially healed over.

Considering that he and Ann were in a situation where they literally didn't know where their next meal was coming from, they'd had quite a decent breakfast. Before they'd left the waterhole, Jack had sensibly decided to wade in and gather some of the resident freshwater mussels for gourmet treats-the clear water had made it a simple task, and the playwright had found so many that they'd filled an entire trouser pocket to bulging. Duplicating one of the classic clambakes that he'd attended back home on New York's beaches hadn't been difficult at all, and the sumptuous results had gone down very nicely indeed with a second helping of flamingo.

Moving a few feet to the right and turning to face the sheer rock face, he shot a nervous glance behind him, briefly dropped his drawers to "iron his shoelaces" as the euphemism went, pulled them up to their proper position, and then paced over to see what had Ann so gay, an actor unhurriedly strolling out onto his open-air stage as the scents of cat, carrion, grass, dust, and hyrax urine drifted to him on a westerly wind through the tropical air.

Below where he stood on the left edge and facing away, his girlfriend was leading an enthusiastic Simba and the elderly Chakavu through a game of Simon Says, flaxen ringlets adorned once more by the cerulean petals of a newly picked lotus, its dark green thick triangular stem a vivid contrast against the pale hues of her neck. The rest of the pride-save Sarafina, Nala, and Mbalamwezi of course-were languidly sprawled out on the rocks in a crude semicircle and watching the game's final act, clearly having "struck out" in an inattentive moment. Zazu was there too, laughing as he watched from a rock perch of his own in the glaring sunbeams.

Deeply charmed and not wanting to intrude on such a blissful moment, a touched Jack Driscoll knelt and stretched himself out prone on the rock, feeling the pleasant sensation of sun-warmed granite against his bare chest as he folded his arms under his chin, soaking in both the sight and the heat like some massive rock monitor.

"Simon Says…touch your belly," Ann told them cheerily, pressing her palm to her stomach as a guide. On cue, each cat raised a great broad forepaw and imitated the action before standing to come a step forward. "Very good!" Ann praised them. "Simon Says…make a circle in front of you with your arms," she airily requested, demonstrating once more. For a second time as Jack watched, both cats mimicked the action as best they could before moving closer. "Nice job! Now walk in a circle one time," Ann shrewdly instructed.

Jack felt his mouth corners curve upwards in knowing anticipation as all the lionesses managed to stop themselves in time-except Chakavu. "Ahh…I didn't say Simon Says!" Ann good-humoredly admonished, pointing at the tawny feline.

The playwright gave a puffing snort of amusement as the elderly lioness hung her head, groaning, "Ahhhh, I fell for it! You'd think I'd be wise enough to know better," she muttered as she turned to walk back to a spot several yards away that evidently must've been the starting line.

Simba was in the lead, nearly at Ann's reed-mantled feet and a butterscotch mass of expectation as she proclaimed, "Simon Says…cross your ankles." Every lion shifted their weight forward and slipped one hind foot in front of the other, including Simba at the group's head.

Taking one final skip towards Ann, the lion cub proudly rubbed his head against her shin in victory before turning to smugly look at the lionesses and declaring "Now we know who's the most totally super-awesome at this game, don't we? It's me of course," he haughtily smirked.

"Oh, we knew it would turn out to be you all along," Sarabi sultrily humored him.

"Never a doubt that such a capable prince like you would win, Simba," Masega assured the cub, who was briefly striking a pose that plainly communicated he was very much number one at this.

"Yeah, and when I get bigger I'll be the very best there _ever_ was at having fun, not just games, but running, and jumping, and climbing, and swimming, and wrestling, and pounc-" From his vantage point, Jack saw Simba's eyes and body perk up from a new idea. "Hey Ann," Simba said animatedly, "could you give me another one of those awesome 'airplane ride' things?"

"Say 'please' young master," Zazu reminded him.

"Oh yeah. Please Ann?" the lion prince said nicely.

"Be glad to Simba," Ann responded before reaching down to take Simba's right front paw in her graceful left hand and the right hind paw in her right one. As Jack looked on, his girl then began to spin like a top, giggling as her blond locks, streaming behind, spread out and seemed themselves to become an ethereal mane, the rich blue of the lotus bloom flashing repeatedly like a blinking light. Simba yelled and yowled in ecstatic delight, face pulled into a joyous huge grin as he reveled in the delights of centrifugal force.

Scraping his bangs out of his vision with a swift swipe of his hand, Jack felt a slow smile mature on his lips as he regarded the utterly magical sight. Even in just that dirtied slip, she looked like one of Shakespeare's dryads, nymphs, or wood-sprites, dancing somewhere deep in a sylvan hideaway with all Nature's creatures as her partners and friends.

To think, Jack marveled in thankful amazement as he gazed down, that just a mere three days ago the sole sound he was hearing from Ann Darrow's lungs wasn't effervescent laughter, but wrenching screams, ones as bloodcurdling and terrible as those of the banshees in the Irish folk tales his father and paternal uncles would tell him as a boy. At around this time three days ago, he'd desperately been doing his utmost to avoid being pulverized under the wrinkled massive legs, big around as mature oak trees, of a herd of equally panicked brontosaurs-while also striving not to get his spine snapped or his side laid open by the teeth and sickle claws of an Aquilasuchus like poor Herb Cooper had.

_And I alone escaped to tell thee,_ the playwright thought in brief melancholy before the profound, victorious relief at having survived himself and having Ann safe once more washed it away. Odysseus didn't return to the coastline of Ithaca with a single one of the men he'd left for Troy with, after all. But even while he spent all those years living out of Calypso's cave on the isle of Ogygia, his heart and soul never strayed far from Penelope.

Thankfully, Jack _knew _exactly where his Penelope was, although they were still in circumstances as crazy and surreal as any from Greek myth. _Come to think of it, a Fleischer Studios cartoon is much more like it, _he thought wryly, feeling the right side of his mouth separate in an amused grin. Betty Boop or her dog friend Bimbo could come strolling out from behind one of those boulders now, and he probably would scarcely bat an eye in reaction.

Jack's thoughts were interrupted by the now familiar aroma of carrion and honeyed tobacco creeping into his capacious nostrils, causing him to turn and look over his shoulder. It was His Majesty nobly sauntering up to the writer's prone form.

"Hello Jack. Sleep well?" Mufasa asked as he flopped down with a yawn.

"Hello Mufasa. Yeah, I did. Sun feels great out here," Jack answered as he watched Ann stop and put Simba down from the corner of his eye, both laughing wildly. Noticing that Mufasa's ivory belly seemed visibly larger, Jack casually mentioned, "And it looks to me like you've had another meal during that time too. Have you?"

"Um-hmm. Couldn't resist paying a call on Sarafina and Mbalamwezi-or more specifically the zebra meat they were guarding," Mufasa affirmed with a slow nod and smile.

"I thought you'd already eaten? At least that's what Sarabi told me," Jack added.

"Oh, about the impala I poached from the cheetah brothers," the lion king said in understanding. "Well, they'd already eaten about a third of it by the time I came, so there was still plenty of room to fill. Besides, I wouldn't have been able to possibly turn down a helping of such a delicacy like zebra," he added, a dignified smirk of appreciation on his features.

"I can completely relate to that," Jack agreed, thoughts of veal, crowned rack of lamb, T-bone steak, orange duck, and other particularly mouth-watering meat dishes swirling around in his head- cooked of course. Back in New York, it admittedly hadn't been as if he'd had massive loads of cash to burn…he still lived out of an apartment after all. Still, as a reasonably well-known playwright, he'd done nicely enough for himself to have been able to afford going out to a fancy restaurant once or twice a week instead of the customary diner. Then too, he'd also go out to high-class dinners and lunches with friends, colleagues, fellow intellectuals, and interested theater owners, either just for the sheer sake of getting together, or to conduct serious business.

Now Ann was giving Simba another "airplane ride," this time in a direction counter to the one before. From his platform above, Jack looked down in warm appraisal, a delighted expression across his features. It was of a type similar to the type a man on a tropical vacation might well display, as he watches his wife or daughter shop at a local market, go parasailing, or dance with some local children. Mufasa didn't bother to say anything else, and simply yawned another time, exposing those great, yellowed daggers of teeth.

To think, the writer marveled, that he was lying down within a yard of an animal that could bite straight through his chest in an instant. And yet Jack Driscoll totally trusted the regal cat, knew that he didn't ever have to worry about such a thing.

And to think that this lion king was allowing Ann to touch and play with his own cub on top of that! The merriment she and Simba were displaying seeped into his own breast, and in a spirit of dry mischief, he let his presence be known by asking out of the blue, "How's my beautiful dame doing?"

"Oh!" Surprised, Ann came to a halt, having the presence of mind to slow and put Simba back down before drawing her slim form up and looking into his face 30-40 feet above. "There you are Jack. I'm doing very well, thank you," she greeted, a smile on her pale upturned face. "Simba and I have been having a gay time playing together for much of the morning."

"Hello Mr. Driscoll, old chap!" Zazu greeted him, the majordomo lunging off his rock perch and gliding steeply upwards to alight on the stone a yard from his right shoulder.

"Hey there Zazu," Jack distantly responded, giving a quick flip of his hand for acknowledgement.

"And I'll attest that Miss Darrow knows how to make sport indeed," the hornbill continued.

"Yeah, she's so much fun!" Simba joyously confirmed from down below. "The games she's taught us and the tricks she can do…Aw man, they're-she's!-just such a blast Jack!"

Shifting his torso to look back at Ann, Jack asked her, "What games did you introduce them to?"

"All sorts-or at least those our four-legged friends can play," she called back up to him, a smile of residual joy on her lips.

"And she's been playing them with us all morning long too!" a gleefully appreciative Simba burst out. "Not only did she teach us this cool Simon Says game-that _I_ won-, but also Red light, Green light, Mother-May-I, Follow the Leader, Slap Hands, and Sleeping Lions! I can't wait to teach them to Nala later."

"They caught on quickly among us lionesses too," Ndugu added. "And proved to also be just as enjoyable for us older cats."

"So well that we even forgot about sleepy we were," Deiriai remarked half-jokingly, flexing her tawny corded forelegs and exhibiting her ridged coral palate in a protracted yawn. "But I think it's finally dropped onto me now like a tree limb."

"Hey, time has a way of flying when you're having fun," Jack said wryly. Of course, the playwright silently corrected, Skull Island had shown him that time could also fly swiftly when you were _not _having very much fun at all-but enough of that.

Deiriai laughed, then said to Ann, "Anyway, thanks for teaching us all those new games," the lioness said, turning and pacing over to the massive spur's cool shade, her long yellowish tail slipping out of Jack's vision under the edge. The other lionesses gave their thanks as well before drowsily dispersing to find their own chosen place to sleep away the day.

"I'm still ready to play even more though-if you want to Miss Darrow," Simba told her. "More than ready."

"Just Ann please," she lightly replied. "I'll be taking a nap myself in a while, but yes Simba, I'll play with you for a bit longer. I'm too tired for any more rough-spirited play this time though."

"That's okay. Do you have any more slower games you can teach me?" the lion prince asked, expectantly meeting that gorgeous, gentle cornflower gaze Jack could never tire of mingling his own with.

"Pos-I-tive-ly. This one is called Patty-cake, and it's one my own mother played with me as a girl."

As she began to lead Simba through the steps of the familiar childhood game, Jack couldn't help but detect that Ann would discreetly glance up at him every several seconds. After working in theater for about a decade, he knew quite well what those motions signified. It was a cautious reciprocal scrutiny, the apprehensive manner of an actress who can feel, almost tangibly, that she has calculating, appraising eyes watching her, and can't prevent herself from trying to pick up a glimpse of how her performance is turning out with her own peepers.

Not caring about whomever else was around him, trying to make his voice sound more comforting than exasperated, Jack simply told her, "Ann, you're not under a magnifying glass. Just ignore me and keep on playing with Simba."

She seemed doubtful for a moment or two. Then she gave him a small smile, just hardly showing those cute two upper teeth, and slipped back into clapping her palms against the lion prince's pads, her demeanor now one of unworried ease. A thin, peaceful smile on his lips, the touched playwright's heart and soul feasted on the scene below in the African sun's rays, filled with warmth both inside and out.

"You know Jack," Mufasa said reflectively, "I'll admit that since Ann is only the first human kike I-and most of the animals in the Pridelands for that matter-have ever seen, I don't have much basis to draw on here. Still, I get the impression that she's truly something exceptional."

"Yes," Jack immediately, wholeheartedly replied. "Yes, she truly, absolutely is an exceptional woman Mufasa. You could offer me a goddess or a nymph for a partner, and my-my _angel_ Ann-would trump them all in my eyes and my heart. We practically come from two different worlds you know, and when we actually first encountered each other, she rather gallingly-though innocently-insulted me," he chuckled. _So much younger in person, and much better looking, too! _

"Yet I wouldn't desert or let her down now for anything-even if Satan personally threatened me with all the torments of hell," Jack passionately told them both as he looked down at her. Mufasa and Zazu all slipped away for a few seconds, as the scalding memory of seeing Ann's cabin ransacked on the steamer returned to him. Even the reeling red agony in his skull, as if a grizzly bear had been digging its claws into his head, had been trumped by a single, voicelessly shrieked phrase-and those words had been OH MOTHER OF GOD, AAAANNNNNN!!! In his thirty-two years, Jack honestly couldn't think of a time when he'd previously felt such knife-sharp, undiluted terror.

"Your account of what you underwent on that island makes that quite plain indeed already, Mr. Driscoll," Zazu said, nodding knowingly. "If only I had someone to care about that deeply," the red-billed hornbill desolately sighed.

"Zazu, you know full well that you're welcome to put your duties aside and take a mate whenever you wish," Mufasa reminded his majordomo in that stately rumble. "You haven't even considered pairing off with anyone since you started serving my father in fact, you realize that?"

"I do Mufasa, but my duties to you and helping maintain the good of the Pridelands is far more important than my martial status," Zazu replied, looking out over the plains from where the chirps and shrills of grasshoppers floated up, and the scattered russet figures of Thompson's gazelles nibbled herbs and shoots. "Besides Sire, I enjoy my position and the work I do so much that I generally don't even notice or have the time to dwell on it," he flippantly assured the lion king.

Jack felt his mouth twitch hard to the right in amused recollection at how similar the hornbill's stance had been to his own only two months ago. " I used to feel the exact same way about my job and how it filled in the gaps too. If I didn't have myself a full-time dame, that was too bad, but ultimately no skin off my immense nose," he admitted, chuckling at his self-deprecating words.

"But it goes without saying that things have very much changed now," Mufasa said. "Even if you hadn't told us a thing about your remarkable bravery and how you'd risked your life in rescuing her, it would still be plain to see how much you love her."

"More than anything under the sun or the moon," Jack earnestly responded. "And what _isn't_ there to love about her?" he enquired of them, gesturing downwards to his angelic dame as she played with the lion cub. He went on before they could respond, an English bard singing the praises of his queen. "I mean, first of all she's extraordinarily easy on the eye. For cripe's sakes, she's the most gorgeous woman that I've ever _seen_, and if you both think that Ann is beautiful now-which she certainly is-you should see her under more normal conditions, when she's washed and her hair is tightly curled and she's in a magnificent glittering dress that drags on the ground and she's wearing perfume and…"

The playwright was suddenly aware that he was rambling on, and much of it at that on things that a lion and a hornbill could have no possible inkling about. "And I'm losing you, aren't I?" he frowned, feeling the skin of his forehead crease as he turned to read both their faces.

"Not at all Mr. Driscoll," Zazu replied. "Oh yes, she must be even more splendidly lovely." Mufasa gave a measured nod of agreement. But Jack could still see on his visage, as well as Mufasa's, a marked confusion about those unfamiliar words-and their resignation to the fact that they would never be able to grasp all that he knew. But they got the thread of what he was saying at least.

Worrying that he might be sounding somewhat shallow, Jack added, "But there's many more things by far about why she's truly such a special woman, besides her beauty. What are they? Well, let me count the ways," he wryly quipped.

Mufasa chuckled lightly and Zazu smirked as Jack told them, never taking his eyes off the slim flaxen-haired figure below him, "She's so compassionate for one thing, and concerned about others almost to a fault-Simba wouldn't _be_ playing any more games if she wasn't-and she got pretty darn distressed to say the least when I told her about what I and the other men in the rescue party went through-to say nothing of how she reacted on seeing what it had inflicted on me." His right hand couldn't help but not gingerly explore the wildcat scratches on his chest and the knitting gash in his left shoulder, thinking back to how Ann had looked and behaved like she'd been punched after seeing him undress at the waterhole the previous afternoon.

"She's extremely charming and playful-I mean, that's self-evident," he said, angling his hand at her once more. "She knows how to have fun and laugh and a sense of humor-and I swear that she's working her magic towards making me the same way too!" he declared, giving a crooked grin accommodated by a throaty chuckle. After all, Venus had even been able to coax Mars into changing his attitude for the better, and if even the Roman war god could discover and grow to adopt a gayer frame of mind, it would be little challenge for Jack's earthly Venus to do the same. And to the writer's surprise, the prospect really didn't bother him one bit.

"Well, I've heard it said that you know you have a truly great female when she can make other parts of you-ones that you might not even know you had-come out into the sunlight," Mufasa commented.

"I don't exactly think of Ann as just a 'female,' but I totally agree. She's sure made a lot of my personality come to the forefront-especially bravery and a whole new type of responsibility." A slow, ironic smile came to Jack's lips as he rested his chin on the knuckles of his hand, saying with meditative pride and amazement, "From milquetoast to he-man and hunter in just four days. Who could possibly have thought this fella had it in him? I sure as hell never would've. It's almost putting me through an identity crisis, to be frank. "

"Oh, never say never when it comes to what love will make someone do Jack," Mufasa pointedly rumbled. "You're living proof of that."

"Barely," Jack responded in black humor. The statement led him to consider a wearisomely familiar paradox, and he gave a sardonic laugh at it. "And you know what's too funny, so funny it's almost-no, _is_ –ridiculous? Of all the brave, macho, scary things I've done, the one that I haven't been able to do yet is tell Ann out loud that I love her." He couldn't keep himself from ruefully shoving both broad hands, hands that were so gifted at expressing the human heart's feelings on paper, against his lean face.

"Truly laughable, isn't it?" he muttered into his fingers. "I'll face a 12-ton ape and tear down a cramped gorge among a panicked herd of brontosaurs for her, but I can't find enough cojones to utter those three golden words," he growled, sighing in frustration at himself as his hands sunk downwards over his cheeks, briefly leaving furrows in the dark skin.

The sensation of glowing solar heat on the writer's bare shoulders was replaced by the feeling of the lion king's weighty tawny paw coming to rest across them. Jack Driscoll found himself marveling at how the great cat, potentially able to smash down a door with just a swipe or two of that blocky paw, was using it so gently towards him.

"Don't claw yourself over it, Jack," Mufasa soothed. "If it won't come to your tongue yet, that's okay. And I can very much sympathize with how you feel. You know, when Sarabi and I were courting, I found it a lot less frightening to participate in a buffalo hunt than admit out loud that I loved her," he admitted with a nostalgic, embarrassment-tinged laugh.

"That's quite right," Zazu chuckled. "I remember how you'd walk up to her and say something like 'Lady Sarabi, I just want to tell you that I-I like to eat wildebeest.' The expressions on both your faces were always utterly priceless!!"

Among lions, the type of love expressed between a pride male and a lioness, and the nature of their whole relationship for that matter, is vastly different from the love which many male humans feel and display towards their wives or girlfriends. We understandably perceive a 'classic' romantic relationship to be one based on ideals of protection, tenderness, fidelity, compatibility, and hopefully compromise, among other things. Certainly, in their stately, languid way, lions strongly bond with, recognize, and show great affection and respect-albeit it's more often than not the lioness exhibiting it towards her lord and master-to their mates, and aloofly enjoy each other's company as the pride lays scattered about in the shade.

For the most part though, lions view members of the opposite sex as something closer to business partners and assets, a means to an end, rather than romantic soulmates. To a pride male, his lionesses serve his interests by acting in two capacitites: as mates, collaborators in helping him win the genetic jackpot, and being huntresses that keep him well fed. For the lioness' part, she has the comforting security of knowing that she-and even more importantly, her cubs-will be well protected from strange males, and by any attacks from spotted hyenas.

And that is essentially where it ends, with both lions and lionesses often taking the battle between the sexes to a rather high level indeed in the meanwhile. A male lion will regally greet a lioness one minute, then unceremoniously cuff her off of her kill-no matter how hungry she is-or abruptly grab and bite her for irritating him in some way. As for the lioness, if a male does something that gets on her nerves, such as following her around when she wants some peace and quiet, or giving her cubs an imagined dirty look, she won't hesitate to lash out and claw her mate. Nor will they lift a paw to assist their 'spouse' in a dire situation, but instead turn tail and head for the hills alongside fellow pride members.

All the same though, the lioness in a pride who receives the glorious, exalted title of Queen is aware that as a future mother of kings and queens herself, she needs to be discerning. Always, the male designated to be King must demonstrate exceptionally high standards before she'll accept a formal union, never mind 'warm his belly fur,' to use leonine lingo. One of these attributes that a Prince must display is courage, and not just physical, but emotional-including putting his feelings into truthful words. If he can't perform this task right away, than the prospective ruler must at least strive towards doing it until he finally can-and fast.

Ignorant of these traditional expectations, the inner picture Jack's mind conjured up made him wildly laugh out loud. "Well, if even the king of the beasts can get shaky feet at the prospect of putting his feelings into words, I guess I don't have to feel so chicken-hearted about my inability to either," the playwright said, partly in jest, partly in a cheering type of relief.

"What's got you in such a spin up there, Jack?" Ann's voice cut in from down below. Jack tensely froze, feeling his cheeks grow hot and compressing his lips as he looked into her lustrous blue eyes three stories or so below.

"Um…Nothing important Ann. We're just beating our gums about memories of funny things that happened to us in the past." He felt secretly ashamed and revolted inside to be lying to her, especially for no other purpose than to skate around something he didn't as yet feel ready or adept enough to tackle-although he rightly should've done it long ago by now. But it did contain enough truth to make it only a partial lie, and that had to count for something. Right?

"Funny ha-ha or funny weird?" she innocently quipped back.

"The ha-ha variety," he informed her, a mouth corner slipping eastward.

His girl's attention was distracted again by Simba excitedly saying, "Hey, hey Ann! Wanna hear this awesome song we and the other animals sing sometimes?"

"That would be great. But it's the last thing we're going to do for a while, okay? Then you'll have to go back to pestering your mother," she teased.

"Okay. But anyways, the song starts out like this-Get down, get down, get down, get down…"

Jack listened for a few moments, intensely fascinated by the strange tune the lion prince was singing. He enjoyed music immensely, and back in Manhattan, his apartment contained a wide range of records and genres to enjoy, playing on the gramophone in the background while he typed. This sounded similar to big band, and seemed to more or less use the same 'instruments'-if that word could mean anything in this situation-, but why that strange tempo and weird monkey screech? Well, if the animals around here had their own peculiar type of slang and could speak fluent English, Jack thought, it really wasn't too much of a leap to presume that they also had a uniquely bizarre form of music as well.

"Ah, the young master loves that song," Zazu chuckled.

"Any idea what it's called?" the writer curiously asked.

"I don't remember right now-do you know Zazu?" Mufasa pondered.

"I believe it's 'Jungle Something,' but I'm afraid I don't know the whole title off the top of my head," the hornbill shrugged.

"That's okay," Jack dismissed.

"But at any rate, getting back to the topic," Mufasa said, "the basic point is that in the end I found the ability to tell Sarabi that I loved her. It just came out naturally, without being forced, and you'll reach that place too Jack-sooner than you may think."

"Lord knows that'll sure be one damn fulfilling moment," Jack said dreamily. "I'd still like to get on with it quickly though."

"Well, in the meantime," Zazu encouraged him, "you can take heart from how actions speak louder than words-and everything you've done, both before and after we met, speaks volumes about how strongly you love her. Miss Darrow would have to either be blind or a complete duffer not to recognize _that_."

"Since she's neither, I know that she certainly recognizes it," Jack intoned with a smile. "And I know that she loves me too, especially for _who_ I am, not _what_ I am. You both saw, in the graveyard, how even when I was positive that you'd do me in, she wouldn't run out on me."

"Yes," Mufasa nodded. "That was very commendable. By the way," he added, "have you told her about the ceremony I'm going to-perform, let's just say-at dusk tonight?"

"Yeah, I did. Ann was rather distressed by that idea too, even though I told her it was ultimately for her own good and mine, and that another wound wouldn't really make much difference. How deep and painful is it going to be anyway, if the scar has to be big enough for other animals to see on each calf? Is it going to be some horrible gouge?" he asked, the playwright's insides twisting like worms at the anticipated pain.

"It'll have to be deep enough to penetrate the muscle," the lion king frankly admitted. "It's not going to lame you by any means though."

"Oh Christ. Well, at least I have a high pain tolerance," Jack lightheartedly quipped, giving a weak crooked grin to mask his uneasiness.

"Even so, you're probably going to be laid up for three to four days from it you know Jack, so if you feel that there's any pressing business you need to do, I'd advise you to go and get started."

"A sensible plan," Jack nodded. "And after that wound's healed, we'll probably spend a further week learning the basics of living out here until we decide to up and relocate." Raising himself up to a seated position, he asked himself, _What out here is in greatest need of doing for Ann and I?_ Out of the blue, something he'd grimly told Ann the previous night, as they'd stargazed together, resurfaced in his mind.

_Of course though, there's always the chance we'd come across a beast that cares quite little for what the mark represents-like those hyenas. But you should know now without saying that I'd fight them until they tore me to shreds. Not that I don't have as much aversion to that outcome as any other man would…_

And oh Jesus, did he ever. The chance that he and Ann would encounter an animal that was both potentially dangerous and held no qualms about violating the almost-holy protection the calf scars evidently gave was a remote one.

Also, this was East Africa, not the raw green hell of Skull Island, with its insane Brobdanagian horrors at every turn. As humans, they were both decent-sized beings by the standards of this place, and beyond the capabilities of a good many predators-to say nothing of being able to put up a good front against others.

Still, the writer was aware that a clever man keeps many different tools in his toolbox, and that if a hostile animal decided to call his bluff-then that single time would be the last. Then there was the matter of feeding themselves through hunting when they couldn't gather. While on the move, it was best for him and Ann to get their meat from smaller game like the hare, animals that he could kill quickly, clean quickly, cook quickly, and hopefully eat quickly before the meat went bad. But at the same time, a bigger animal also meant a greater quantity of meat at once, more merchandise for your dollar in other words.

And it also meant larger amounts of bone, horn, and hide, which could be made into useful tools, other weapons, containers, drinking vessels, and crude leather. He looked down at Ann, in her tattered satin slip. How long would it be until it fell apart and she was left stark naked? He thought of the cartoon images of dirt-poor men and women wearing barrel halves around them, secured by shoulder straps. In her case though, it wasn't a funny picture at all, and his dame was not going to be humiliated and degraded like that, he resolved.

As the writer levered himself up to his feet, Zazu and Mufasa moving aside to give him room, all the signs pointed inorexably to a single logical course of action. Jack Driscoll understood that he needed to go find a good thin tree, then carve himself a good wooden spear, despite the horrifying connotations looking at it would inevitably carry-he'd never underestimate or scoff at primitive weapons again, he knew that much-and use it before the day was out.

It would turn out to be the wisest, most fortuitous decision that he'd ever make.

"I know this will seem like an amazingly foolish question Mufasa, but could you smash a sapling down for me? I'll choose the one I need myself," he added.

Through his magisterial composure, Jack could still tell that the lion king was utterly perplexed.

"By Ngai's feet Jack, what would you want me to knock a sapling down for? You can't eat the wood or the bark."

"It's so I can make a decent weapon out of it," the writer patiently explained. "A spear. You know, one of those big pointed sticks."

"I see," Mufasa replied thoughtfully, his amber eyes displaying a struggle to make sense of the concept. "Well, I'm afraid that even my power has limits to what it can do Jack-but I can certainly help you find an animal who _can_ knock over any tree that suits you."

As they came off Pride Rock, Ann approached him at the foot of the natural stairs. His hands found themselves delving into her hair, soft as a moth's wings and the color of wheat, as he gave her a brief kiss on the cheek, then the full lips, before parting.

"Are you and Mufasa going somewhere?" she asked.

"Yeah, we are," he nodded. "I've taken stock of our assets, you see, and come to the conclusion that when it comes to keeping us protected and fed, we need a much better model than a bone club," he quipped playfully. "So our royal pal here is going to help me go find someone who can knock down a decent tree for me to carve into a spear. I should be back shortly doll."

Ann smiled, and then pensively nodded. "Fair enough. I'll probably be sleeping when you come back by the way, just wanna let you know."

"Simba give you the go-round with all his playing?" he grinned crookedly.

"Absolutely so," she confirmed, giving her beautiful silvery laugh. "There's far worse ways to tire yourself out than playing with a lion cub though, I must say."

Jack Driscoll faintly chuckled. All at once, he realized that here in front of him was as superb an opportunity as any to clear that last big hurdle, the one he'd ruefully moaned about to Zazu and the calmly waiting lion at his shoulder just minutes before. _Nothing ventured, nothing gained_, he said internally to steel himself.

"Ann, my gorgeous girl," he told the shapely, sensitive woman before him, "I just want to say that when you were playing with Simba, that was one of the most charming and beautiful things I've ever seen. And that's one of so many reasons why I-" The accursed crimson tightness welled up again in the playwright's larynx once more, as scratchy and raw as if he'd been suffering from an awful cold, or had swallowed a pint of bark mulch. That little demon of perceived inadequacy and doubt came too, wrapping around the words and squeezing them to death like a carpet python with a possum. To his frustrated despair, the writer found himself vapidly saying, even as he scrabbled to resist, "-I think you'd be great with the housecats we'll have after getting back home too."

He wanted to slap himself at how lamely the sentence had been completed._ Great job with finally letting those feelings off your chest, Mr. Driscoll! And what a clever comment about the housecats!_ he privately savaged himself. _It's far better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you're a fool, rather than open it and remove all doubt-just like you went and did._

During his first several days as an involuntary passenger on the Venture, Jack had frankly tended to look down on the sailors that he reluctantly rubbed shoulders with in many ways, viewing them from his refined artist's perspective as filthy, uncouth, often drunk men, obstinate and brainless as pack mules, and good for little else. One morning, as Carl had been going up the stairs after they'd more or less hammered out a respectable scene together, Jack had heard one of the sailors, an Englishman by the name of David Everhart, meet the producer at the top. Everhart had told Carl that Jack's arrogant behavior was really beginning to get his hackles up, and could Denham please bring his scriptwriter's attitude to heel?

Carl had laughed in response, shamelessly saying, "_Trust me Dave, if you want Jack Driscoll to quit the 'I'm on a pedestal' act, you don't need to get _**me**_ involved. Simply go call him Jackie-or even better yet, Jack-ass. It annoys the living hell out of him_."

Well, Christ very much knew that here in the middle of God knew where in East Africa, _this_ writer sure felt worthy of the title of jackass right now. It made him cringe even more to see a small but perceptible sort of let-down look come into Ann's soft cerulean rabbit eyes, the kind of expression one sees on the face of a dog who, tail wagging frenziedly and carrying his leash or favorite ball in his mouth, runs up to his owner in expectation of a walk-only to be told 'Not just now Sam.' It wasn't as pronounced of course, and not nearly to the degree it had been when the painted dogs had declared that they were going to take leave of them both, but still visible.

Not really sure how to salvage it, he decided to butter her up while following Zazu's "Actions not words" advice at the same moment by planting a kiss on each rosy cheek and that pale forehead. It made the writer feel better at any rate.

"I'll be seeing ya then, sweetheart," he said with a smile before turning back to Mufasa.

"You too Jack. As always, please be careful."

"With Mufasa here, that won't be a problem," he dismissed. "Speaking of which, I'm finally ready for you to go lead me to a nice big herbivore, Your Majesty."

When he'd walked about 30 yards into the endless green meadow, Jack Driscoll shot a final look at Ann over his torn right shoulder. Instead of entering their sleeping cave, his nymph was near the edge of the enormous granite spike, sitting on her knees. She was listening intently to Simba, and from the way he was holding his paw near his mouth, and the covert, hesitant look on his features, it was obvious he hadn't followed her up to play, but to share a secret with her and her alone instead.

What it could be, Jack had no clue. But then, something extraordinary seemed to happen to Ann before his perplexed, mildly interested eyes. It was as if she was suddenly melting under the punishing heat of the African sun, almost as if she had been transformed into a bowl of ice cream. Her trim ivory hands slid up to her face, and even though Jack could see no tears, he knew that she was sobbing from the way her head and chest shook.

He was even more at a loss when Ann's hands dropped down in a flash, reaching out to embrace a startled Simba and clasp him to her bosom in a fervent hug. Her weeping didn't seem tinted by sadness at all, but rather more like the kind of crying that sprouts out of fulfillment instead, from deep joy. Putting Simba down, she took the cub's head in between her hands and kissed him between the ears. Jack was just completely baffled.

Then, as if she'd forgotten something important, she abruptly sat erect, and even as she dried her tears with her hand, pointed in Jack's direction as she looked at Simba, clearly coaxing him to go tell the playwright what had so deeply moved her. The lion prince seemed doubtful for a few moments, a butterscotch figure swaying back and forth in place, then finally left her side and ran down Pride Rock, scampering towards Jack across the grass at full speed.

"What did you tell Ann that affected her that strongly Simba? Was it a nice thing you said?" Jack calmly asked.

"It was, and she told me to come tell it to you too," Simba replied. Suddenly leery, he looked at his father and said, "Um…uh…Dad? You won't get angry when I tell Jack this, will ya?"

"As long as it's something nice that you're saying Simba, I'd never get angry," Mufasa assured him in his rich, smooth tone.

"Well, okay. And could you sit down Jack?"

"Sure thing little fella," Jack replied, crossing his long legs underneath him.

Drawing himself up and taking a deep breath, the lion prince looked the writer in the eyes and told him, "The first thing I want to tell you is thanks again for helping save me and Nala from the hyenas."

"You're very welcome Simba."

"But there's another thing too. Jack, you and Ann are really cool. Not only are you cool, but you're so brave, and so kind, and so fun, and so smart, and-and just great! And that's why-well…um…I just wanted to tell you that…oh…I love you, and Nala does too," gracefully, tenderly rubbing against his knee. "I love you and Ann more than any other grownups in fact-except for Mom and Dad," he amended, sharing a cautious glance with his father and king.

It felt to Jack Driscoll like a huge oak branch had fallen on him-in a very good, wonderful way. He couldn't deny the impulse, and as a rush of warm emotion rushed into his body, he too took Simba up in his arms, almost without realizing it, and held the cub close to his chest. It surprised him to no end to realize that, for the first time in a long while, something rare indeed was happening, and touched tears were also leaking out of his hooded green eyes.

"Thank you Simba," his voice shakily came out. "Thank you so much, that you think that deeply of Ann and I. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that."

"You're welcome Jack," Simba said honestly into his ear. "You're not just my friends, but like my family, and I mean it."

Even as he was trying-and splendidly failing-to outwardly pull himself together, Jack Driscoll felt his heart melt and go all the sappier inside. But sap was also what maple syrup was made from, besides meaning that a man was an idiot or a softie, and he could scarcely conceive of any syrup sweeter than the truths Simba had just confessed to him.

Yes, it was so sublimely true! They really _were_ like family in a way. A completely surreal, fantastical, and temporary one admittedly, but he and Ann could be called family members all the same.

Then, like a bolt of lightening splitting the night sky apart, a flabbergasting, shocking concept erupted into Jack's warmed heart, and in his mind took the shape of a question that he hardly dared to ponder. This bond of family Simba felt towards Jack, and the impressed, respectful admiration Jack felt towards Mufasa, for that matter-was this the same way Ann felt, deep down, towards Kong?

* * *

Yeah, that was a reference to Jungle Boogie by Kool and the Gang, which can be heard in Lion King 1.5. ;) 


	24. The Spearman and the Trickster

I'm back with another chapter dear readers! (a flourish of trumpets sounds five times in succession) Once more, I apologize for being so majorly tardy. Part of the reason is that I am now happily employed, working at a career I'm presently greatly enjoying.

And after all this time and all these words, it gives me great pleasure to announce that finally, we _literally _are at the cusp of this fic's exciting-a.k.a rather violent and bloody-climax, which'll be spread out over the next two chapters. Even I orginally thought this would take only two-thirds as much pages to get to this point while brainstorming, but oh well.

* * *

_If you see the fangs of the lion, don't think that the lion is smiling_. Arabic Proverb. 

_Fide, sed qui, vide. _"Trust but take care whom." Latin Proverb.

_Some hunting mammals have become the fastest creatures on earth. Their prey has had to respond in kind-or die._ David Attenborough, BBC series The Life of Mammals, 2003.

The pounding heat of the African afternoon made Jack feel like a mouse standing under an iron smelter as the playwright strolled through the grass. Raising his right arm, he swabbed the runnels of sweat leaking into his eyes away once more with his begrimed shirt sleeve, briefly considering the rough-hewn acacia wood spear held lightly in his left hand. It admittedly wasn't one of those fearsomely impressive, 8-foot, sword-bladed Maasai spears like a pair Carl had in his collection, but it was a reassuring-and significant-step up in the weapons department.

Still, Jack couldn't help but have the familiar feeling, that same skeptical sensation of "Who-am-I-joking-here" that had paced about in his heart last night before he'd gone hunting with the lionesses. This weapon was nothing more than just a glorified pointed stick about 4.5 feet long, around one and a quarter inches in diameter, with a fire-hardened tip, a part of him derisively snorted. Oh, he'd chosen to put some nice features in-barbs near the front so it could double as a fishing spear and cause even more damage when pulled out of an animal's flesh, a sort of hilt so his hands could grip it all the more securely-but the very idea was ultimately so fumblingly ludicrous.

His mind wandered back to Carl again. By now it had almost certainly dawned on him that his writer and prize actress weren't ever coming back, and he'd cut his losses to slowly steam westward back towards New York, soaked in the agonizing bitterness of having absolutely nothing to show for his reckless gamble. And a portion of Jack felt a sort of understanding pity on his behalf.

Strangely, an even bigger one wished he were here right now-and not just for consistent male company. Denham had been to East Africa at least eight times in his life, and knew his stuff about how to deal with the country and what it could throw at you as a result. Even Preston, in his four years as Denham's assistant, had gleaned an impressive amount of survival skills.

Not that you could deduce it by just looking. To someone meeting him for the first time, the producer seemed short, plump, egotistic, and even more than slightly mad. Very much a man with a desk job. Yet if that same person spent three hours in the same room with Carl and Jack, then was asked which of the two men would be more likely to go out and stalk an antelope with a spear, they'd be pos-I-tive-ly guaranteed to choose Carl, and the playwright would agree with them.

Funny how life and its preconceptions worked out, Jack thought as he approached a loose woodland of fever trees, acacia, and croton bush for the second time today, the cooling green layers of leaves forming caves and awnings of inviting shade. Save for a lone bateleur eagle soaring high above with its distinctive, rocking side-to-side flight, a distant herd of eland catching the breeze on a ridge, a pair of ashy black fork-tailed drongos and a few little green bee-eaters hawking for insects, the plain was all but deserted.

_Only mad dogs, Englishwomen, and playwrights under pressure to bring home the bacon go out in the midday sun_, Jack dryly thought. Out on this grassy plain, the torrid, grilling atmosphere, so scorching hot that the air itself quivered like a film of soap, was nearly as effective a sedative as morphine. He didn't doubt one moment that the winking coolness sheltered equally drowsy antelope, all there for the taking. No, for the _killing_.

He had a nauseating sensation of being less like Jack Driscoll, but much closer right now to Jack the Ripper, right down to the grotesque surgery he'd be carrying out after slaughter with the obsidian cutters. _Dura necessitas_, he mentally shrugged in shamed resignation. Yes, necessity was harsh indeed, most of all when it involved extinguishing another sapient creature's life. But that was the whole point of why he was out here to begin with. After all that effort and with limited time, no turning back now.

Despite His Majesty's great drowsiness and the African sun's relentless heat, Mufasa had courteously shown Jack the most significant features of his kingdom-several other waterholes, none of them spring-fed like the river's source, (though two of them had never been known to go dry) 10 aloe-festooned kopjes, sentry posts of rounded, ancient granite boulders, and four large woodlands. In the punishing glare of the sun's rays, the playwright had stopped often in the shade of the numerous termite mounds and trees to rest.

In one of these woodlands they'd come across a jackalberry tree in fruit, branches loaded with orange-yellow spheres being fed on by spearmint-plumed green pigeons that clambered like parrots through the branches, blue monkeys with their dense, grizzled blue-gray coats and white goatees, and crowned hornbills, knocking fruit back into their bruised orange beaks. Seeing a great opportunity for lunch before him, Jack had carefully, deliberately, climbed the jackalberry's trunk, and eaten what fruit he could safely reach, a truck on a tightrope, before descending.

Since Jack was at least partially familiar with the gallery forest along the river already, he and Mufasa had returned there after a mutual drink at one of the other waterholes to locate a good young tree. During the blazing hot journey back to the river, there had been a curious incident that had left Jack feeling a little uneasy-but only for a few mintues.

Through the heat haze, a speck had come bulleting towards them up from the south on knife-pointed wings, resolving into a lanner falcon as it came closer. Braking on reaching them and perching on a small wild olive sapling, panting as much from exertion as from the heat, she'd said in relief, "Oh Your Highness, thank Montu I was able to find you!! I have very disturbing news to tell you, news your subject"-and here she gestured with her wingtips to her feathered chest-"heard with her own ears!"

Instantly, the lion king was all grave business. "Disturbing?" he enquired. "Is it happening right now? Are there nomads trying to invade?"

"No, no," the lanner falcon replied, shaking her hooded head. "But it will happen soon enough, Your Majesty." Continuing, she panted, "I just came over from the Elephant Graveyard, and some hyenas over there boasted that this kingdom would belong to their clan before the next sunrise came."

Mildly bemused, Jack had asked the falcon, "What were you doing in a dangerous place like that?"

Taking surprised notice of him, the lanner falcon's eyes had lit up in recognition, and she'd declared, "Hey, you're one of the two humans who sav-"

"There's no time for that right now," Mufasa had firmly interjected. "Why were you there and more importantly, what did the hyenas say to you?" A thread of worry was starting to infuse his rich, droning voice.

"I was in the Graveyard because it's a great place for lizard hunting-and with a set of wings and eyesight like mine, the hyenas don't worry me one bit," she'd told the writer. "Anyway, I'd just grabbed a gecko out of a crack in the rock," she'd gone on (unlike most other birds of prey, a lanner falcon's ankle bones are articulated in a way that permits it to rotate its leg and foot almost as dexterously as a human arm and hand), "and was eating it on top of a rock pillar when five hyenas passed underneath."

"All of them looked up at me-out of casual interest I guess-but one said 'Hey birdie, you like to come over to visit and hunt at our home? Then you'll get a real kick out of the expansion we'll be doing before the sun comes up tomorrow,' and laughed. Then a female hyena said to him, 'Yeah, an expansion into the whole Pridelands!'"

"When I heard that, I knew I had to tell you right away," the lanner finished.

"Well, you have my thanks for delivering the news so promptly," Mufasa assured the streamlined raptor. "You can rest easy that we'll be extra vigilant as a result of your warning." Listening, Jack had had the feeling from the lion king's tone that he was saying this more to assuage the falcon's worries rather than out of genuine concern.

Breathing out in relief, the lanner smiled and said in satisfaction, "Well, then I'm glad I did my part," before she launched herself into the sky, ascended, and was gone.

As the lanner falcon receded, Mufasa faintly chuckled as he watched her go.

"That talk was only to humor her, wasn't it?" Jack knowingly, softly commented as they began to walk again.

"You've got me there, I'm afraid," the great lion admitted with a smile.

"But she just told you that she has firsthand knowledge that the hyenas are plotting to take over the Pridelands. That's very serious Mufasa, and to brush it off is the worst kind of recklessness," Jack pointedly told him, deep misgiving churning in his entrails and scraping at the back of his mind. He didn't have any clue exactly how many hyenas dwelled in the Elephant Graveyard, but good Christ, if an entire clan attacked Pride Rock in force…

Coming to a stop, His Majesty turned with a sigh and calmly, matter-of-factly told the writer, "Trust me Jack, I take any and all warnings or signs that something may be amiss from my subjects very seriously. I do not _ever_ brush these things off-in fact, before I perform the calf-marking ceremony on you at sunset, I'm going to go out on a quick patrol with Zazu now just to make certain that the hyenas aren't preparing to pull something."

"But there's one thing I've grown to understand about these hyenas that you don't Mister Driscoll," the red-maned lion went on. "Namely, in practice, they are creatures of much talk, and little action. They're always boasting and bragging about how any day, they'll come over here and oust us "wicked, nasty lions" from the Pridelands. And sometimes I'll even get word-like right now-that this time the hyenas have set a date when they will take over, you bet your life on it. Yet strangely, when the day and hour arrives, there's not much of a mass invasion to be seen," Mufasa droned with a shrewd half-smile.

Jack gave a wry smirk of his own in understanding, saying "I know a few people back home like that too, telling everyone that they're going to pull off something swell any day now. And yeah, it's often the lowlifes who go around saying it." The disquieting, vague nervousness had drained out of his torso, and the incident had been put out of mind as both male mammals carried on walking through the giant star grass, sending plovers and grass mice scuttling out of their way.

On attaining the thick strip of forest, it had occurred to Jack that it might be a fairly difficult business to search out an animal with a strength surpassing Mufasa's, but fortunately, the run of good luck he and Ann had been having continued. Following up a bovine, feedlot scent, and a loose trail of green-brown pasture patties (nearly repeating that revolting rendezvous between his foot and the product of a dromedary's upset bowels during an inattentive moment) they soon came to where a quartet of hulking, grizzled Cape buffalo bulls were lying up in the heat. The cloven-hoofed old-timers had been instinctively suspicious towards and nervous of Mufasa, but were quite good-natured and accomodating towards Jack, bemusing as his request of them was.

To the Maasai, the buffalo is known as _ol-arru_, "he whose horns grow downwards." One _ol-arru_ bull demonstrated how those imposing, corrugated oaken helmets of horns had the ideal curvature for hooking around the base of a sapling-and, with black, bristly, beefy shoulders straining, snapping it with an explosive crack. Dramatically yet calmly, another buffalo bull displayed in turn that when the forelegs of a 3000-pound animal are perched on the general spot where same young acacia's trunk branches out, it provides an astonishingly effective fulcrum for a man to work up the leverage needed to break it off. It helped that Jack's hands were spacious ones.

After thanking the buffalo for their much-appreciated assistance, the playwright had slung the bottom end of the sapling over his tsetse fly-bitten shoulder, dragging it back towards Pride Rock like a travois pole as Mufasa walked abreast. Jack had greeted Ann (who had been punching the bag with Maridadi and Jaha about matters that sometimes concerned survival, sometimes trivial "ladies business," such as hair care and how female humans devoted far more assiduous treatment than just licking,) gotten some shut-eye for about 20-30 minutes, then immediately gotten to work with the obsidian scrapers after waking.

Mufasa, Simba, and many of the lionesses joined them in their guest cave out of fascinated curiosity; nonchalantly watching Jack work while the cats alternately dozed and rested. To pass the time, Jack told them the story Diamonds and Toads, about how the younger of a widow's two daughters helped an old woman by drawing water for her, and then had jewels fall from her mouth every time she spoke from that time forward. Her older sister though, was rude to the woman, and was cursed with having a snake or toad pop out instead whenever she talked.

Taking her turn, Ann told the leonine audience Kipling's How the Leopard Got His Spots (at around that point, Mufasa had given up the fight and drifted into slumber), and the fairytale The Princess and The Pea. The lions themselves told a tale then, Chakavu telling an interesting story that essentially dealt about how Ngai had created the first lion and his mate in order to rule over his handiwork, to maintain the balance of the land's creatures, and ensure that the lesser predators too, would not be allowed to do solely what they will. Ngai would not permit them to be tyrants though, and decreed that for every time they and their progeny acted out of self-interest, they must also perform an action that would help to ensure the kingdom's stability. Otherwise, he would call down a plague of desolation on the land; one far worse than any drought could ever match.

Thanks to all the local gossipers, chatterers, and storytellers, the news of what both he and Ann had done for the royal family had swept through the Mzima Pride's lands and beyond like dust in the wind. Not very surprisingly, thankful and well-wishing creatures of every form and color would stop by to visit and take an amazed look at them or profess their gratitude every few minutes from the cave's mouth.

After a time, hunched like a cooked shrimp over the stripped umbrella acacia sapling, Jack Driscoll's weary fingers had clamped down once more on the obsidian scraper as he dug its sharp edge into the wood one, two, three, then finally four times. "I think that's pointy enough now to make a suitable pig-sticker," he wryly commented to Ann, who had giggled in response as the writer sat erect and uncoiled his tense, redly aching shoulder and back muscles for what seemed like the hundredth time since he'd begun making the weapon.

The exertions had resurrected some of the soreness in his bruises and made some of the many scabbed-over wounds bleed once more. Concerned, Ann had insisted that he take another rinse in the lake-"It'll be on your way out anyway," she'd reasoned-and had followed the dip up with an admittedly rather pleasurable, though quick, neck and shoulder massage while he'd lain prone in the reeds.

It was almost as sublime for Jack to enter the delightfully cool shade of the open woodland. Cripes was he hot! His attention was diverted by a short, gruff, roaring snort, coming through the bushes in front of him and off to his right. A lesser kudu bull, horns corkscrewing up into the lower branches of a tree, was curiously gazing at Jack as he slipped into the gold-flecked shade, but the noise hadn't been as close as that.

Walking quickly, the playwright expectantly followed it to its source, located about 130 yards away. It led him to a herd of impala, just like the one Ndugu had pressured him into finishing off last night. There were six or seven dozen of the russet-coated antelope, walking with the delicate, mincing steps of deer as they browsed and grazed at the woodland's edge.

The glutton in Jack wanted to promptly shove a spear into one of them. Look at all that meat and hide for the taking! But the pragmatic part of him warned against it. True, killing one wouldn't be that difficult, but hauling the impala all the way back to Pride Rock would be another matter entirely. Fortunately, only a couple hundred yards past the herd, three Thompson's gazelle bucks, black bandoliers of their flanks standing out sharply through the heat-blurred air, were standing in the shade of a wild olive tree, only the flicking black metronomes of their tails moving.

That was more like it.

Paying him no heed, a few of the impala unhurriedly stepped aside as Jack began to slink towards the Tommy bucks, cultivating an air of nonchalance that he intended to only drop at that last, traitorous instant-when three other stalkers decided it was time to strike. Wheezing snorts of alarm burst from the impala, and they scattered in all directions around the confused human, fleeing in great, springing, arching leaps, tails held in the air like distress flags. The buck gazelles wisely took the cue themselves, fleeing for their lives across the plain.

Without even stopping to think, an automatic impulse, sharpened so well by Skull Island, caused Jack to conclude that if the impala were running from something, he'd better follow their lead. Two instants later, the trunk of a large tree was pressing securely against his back. Instinctively, he flashed around to his left, hoping to get a better look at-well, whatever predator was after the antelope itself. He got a wonderful look.

A trio of cheetahs shot out from a hollow in the thick red oat grass where they'd been crouching, rocketing over the ground after the panicked impala. Within a few strides, they were going thrice as fast as the best human sprinter. Jack Driscoll was astonished. He'd seen cheetahs at the Bronx Zoo and in traveling menageries of course, and it wasn't too difficult to figure out that with their small, cue-ball heads, wasp waists, long stick legs and wiry frames, these cats were absolutely _born_ to run. And he knew from what he'd read that when they _did_ run, they moved like greased lightening.

But good Lord, he'd never realized or fully understood how these fellas could sprint-sprint like Mercury! The painted dogs had been fast, and so had the Aquilasuchus, both of them running in an easy, well-oiled, steady, implacably determined manner. But these cheetahs before him-they might as well have been strapped to rockets, polka-dotted amber streaks flying across the soil. _If I'd possessed speed like that on Skull Island_, Jack thought in awe, _I'd have made those Aquilasuchus look like dunces in comparison_.

A cheetah at full tilt brings swift to a whole new dimension. Most dogs, even greyhounds or Salukis, find it extremely hard work to run down a hare. Yet a cheetah makes it look about as difficult as it would be for us to chase down a lab mouse. For half the time the cat spends running, all four of its feet are off the ground, and as a rule, only one foot is actually touching the dirt at a time. Its spine is so flexible, and arches so high during every stride, that the hind paws swing forward far enough to hit the ground _in front_ of the front paws, pushing off again with enough power to buck off a grown man. The spotted cats can and could literally run rings around most of our planet's other large carnivores, and if they've gotten close enough to have a respectable chance, few herbivores can hope to escape in a straight-line run once targeted.

From what Jack could make out, this trio's target seemed to be a big impala stag, bearing a nice rack of horns. Desperately, he jinked and swerved three or four times, making his best attempt to shake his pursuers off. He was nimble, but the fleet-footed cats didn't miss a beat. Ropy tails flailing for balance, sheets of dust flew up into the air as they made forty-five degree hairpin turns, executing them in no more time than it took to blink. They all shot across Jack's line of vision only thirty yards in front of him, and, caught up in the electric, primitive excitement of the chase, he ran after to see its conclusion.

The impala stag made one final frantic swerve as the cheetahs gained on him, providing the writer with a great view of one of the cats closing the distance. Then the greyhounding cat's forepaw flicked out, knocking the two-toned antelope's back legs out from under him with an underhanded scoop. It sent the impala crashing down onto his left side, sliding across the dirt like a Yankees batter in a last-ditch effort to attain a base.

Before the impala could regain his feet, the wiry spotted cats were literally at his throat, two wrestling the stag down while another, using its weight as an anchor, clamped the windpipe shut. Without even halting to think about why he was doing it, Jack Driscoll found himself rushing forward across the grass, driven by a primitive, deep-seated, instinctive urge.

On reaching the borderline in the grass that he'd self-designated, Jack came to a stop and silently, eagerly waited. The genetic response he was obeying wasn't one born of mercy, not some altruistic urge to save the impala-far from it. Instead, it was an impulse to poach the struggling meat bonanza before him.

_Yes, yes, go fellas, choke that son of a bitch's life out,_ he found himself rooting ogrishly-even as a distant, civilized part of the writer turned to regard the other in disbelieving, slack-jawed horror at the silently worded, feral desire. It wasn't very long at all before the impala stag ceased his kicking and his brown eyes glazed, the muzzles of the two cheetahs at the haunches already stained red as they sheared meat away. That was Jack's cue.

In the fine tradition that his hominid ancestors had followed for millions of years, he found his backbone and charged them with an intimidating yell, arms and spear flailing. One of the cheetahs broke from his feeding and, yellow hackles erected, stamped both forelegs on the ground twice with a defiant, spitting hiss.

It made Jack recoil momentarily, but he knew from what natural history he'd read that you could pilfer even a wild cheetah's kill without very much protest, and sprang forwards once more. Built for speed, not strength, the stick-figure felines decided discretion was the better part of valor and scattered. Even if the playwright had been armed with nothing but his fists and a cheetah had been rash enough to attack him, the slender cat would've likely received a nasty, crippling injury-a kick in the chest, a broken or dislocated leg.

As they grudgingly trotted away, Jack heard one of the cats growl to a sibling, "I swear to Obufil, things always have to get _worse_ in the thief department. If it's not the lions, it's the hyenas. If it's not the hyenas, it's the leopards. If it's not the leopards, it's the painted dogs. If it's not the painted dogs, it's the baboons or even the gangs of ugly vultures. And now humans just _have_ to get into the act too!!"

The cat's bitter words only sharpened the hot, prickly embroidery needles of guilt that jabbed at the playwright's conscience as he stood over their rightful kill. Even if they were "just animals," he'd robbed them of their dinner, broken the good old Seventh Commandment.

Kneeling down to meditatively stroke the lifeless impala's teak and rufous coat, short and silky as a pronghorn's, Jack Driscoll soothed himself with the thought that the cheetahs were far better adapted for bringing down antelope than he was. They didn't need it _that_ badly. They wouldn't go hungry. They'd just travel for a mile or so, rest a bit, and then go hunting again. Besides, he gratefully realized, this kind of behavior released him today from having to spill blood and have another sentient being's slaying weighing on his heart. Far better to have the label of thief written all over you as opposed to murderer.

Then the Jack noticed the shadows of other looters gliding over the grass. Vultures. Coming from miles around, the huge gray-brown birds descended in sailing swoops, rocking back and forth to spill air from their vast wings as they plummeted to the grassy sward. Hulking lappet-faced, Ruppell's griffon, white-backed and trim hooded vultures all met terra firma at a bouncing, hunchbacked run, gathering in a tight, expectant circle around Jack and his stolen goods.

It was an eerie, deeply chilling thing to be surrounded by such symbols of death as they throatily cackled and hissed and gabbled and croaked-particularly for a man who had been nearly claimed by their benefactor at least seven times. Their greedy, wickedly glinting, visored reptilian eyes both inflamed and agitated Jack Driscoll somehow. Equal parts instinctive possessiveness and repulsed loathing compelled him to abruptly rush at one quadrant of the circle, the sickening birds uttering croaking gabbles of surprise as he beat at them with the spear and stamped twice in threat before returning to the impala.

Some vultures had cleverly jogged forwards behind his back while he'd made a run at their pals and were starting to peck at the hide-but hurriedly dispersed before him. Considering them as sweat ran from his pores, Jack realized in exasperated misgiving that he was in something of a tight spot. No sensible man would pass up a windfall like this under these circumstances, but how was he going to move this antelope nearly three miles back to Pride Rock? At around the size of a Scottish sheep, carrying a Thomson's gazelle across his shoulders or, if he had to, dragging it back, wouldn't be all that challenging-and a duiker would've been absolute duck soup.

The impala before him weighed perhaps 140-150 pounds though, and the writer was aware that it was plenty strenuous enough to drag a young whitetail buck weighing 90-120 after gutting for a distance of 300 yards-never mind doing so in heat topping one hundred degrees. He couldn't go back to Pride Rock to get help or retrieve his obsidian facsimiles of knives for butchering the animal-the vultures would've stripped it to bones long before then.

Resigned to his only option, Jack sighed, reluctantly clamped his spear in the pit of his left shoulder, grabbed each of the impala's lyre-shaped horns, and braced his feet, pulling backwards in sharp yanks. Getting to the halfway mark would probably take at least an hour.

_Just keep thinking of Ann and how delighted she'll be to see what you've hauled back._

Never taking their steely gangster's eyes off the prize, the undaunted vultures plodded after.

"Aw, come on pal, you don't need _that_ much meat," one lappet-faced coaxed.

"Let us take just a hind leg's worth for ourselves," a Ruppell's griffon hopefully croaked.

"No. Scram and go get your own," Jack growled, head down.

After only about an eighth of a mile, the strain and heat were insupportable. The irritated New Yorker decided to impress the vultures once more and made a run at them a second time before sitting down next to his prize. If only he had a car…

"Having trouble with dragging your bounteous meal back home Mr. Driscoll? Vultures are so _unbearably_ annoying, aren't they?" The voice, suave and conversational, came so abruptly from behind as the spooked carrion birds fled around him like juvenile delinquent angels.

"Jesus!" Jack leapt to his feet as swiftly as if he'd just sat down on a porcupine, and whirled around to face the speaker. Hands gripping his spear, he panted out, "How did you manage to get that close without me kn-" His hands clenched the spear even more fiercely, and a bolt of alarm straightened his spine as Jack realized who it was.

It was Scar looking back at him, only eight feet away.

As clearly and brilliantly as if she'd been standing at his shoulder, Ann's words from last night resounded in his mind at that instant. _But most of the things he said have me scared because from what I can tell, his problem is with you Jack. Not with me, but __you._

Jack Driscoll's very first impulse was to pierce the black-maned lion through on the spot. It would have to be a thrusting jab that penetrated the chest. He would have to either drop to his knees, or stretch out prone as Scar charged, and then shove the point into the heart or a lung as deeply and accurately as he could. It would be damned risky, but it was the only practical choice if he wanted to live. Ann had warned him not to play around with this fella if he could help it, right?

In the next moment, it hit Jack that doing something this aggressive would be the epitome of overreacting. Right now, the tawny, lanky lion was merely arrogantly gazing back at him, malachite stare meeting malachite stare.

Then too, Jack had the impression that if Scar had intended to kill him, he wouldn't have wasted a single word, but struck swiftly and in silence. And he hadn't attempted to do anything of the kind-at least, not yet. Better to warily see what transpired here-but still keeping tight hold of that spear all the same.

For a few drawn seconds, there was nothing but the grating _zeeps_ of the grasshoppers and the excited _kertle-lee-la-tootle_ ratchetingof dueting D'Arnaud's barbets. A half-roasted anxiety drifted and milled over the impala's lifeless body like the oven sky itself.

Finding his voice at length, Jack inhaled to fortify himself before levelly greeting,"Hello there Scar. How's it going?"

"Good afternoon, Jack Driscoll," Scar responded, a cordial purring tone to his words. "A grand day out, isn't it?" he asked, turning sideways and pretending to take the shimmering savannah in. Was that the lion's way of reassuring him, compelling him into letting down his guard?

"The views sure are grand, but this awful heat I could do without," Jack frankly admitted, managing to master the lump of tension in the hollow of his abdomen as he wiped his sweaty brow clean. As he did, Scar lightly squatted and scraped his hind paws through the dirt, claws unsheathed, seven or eight times in a very brisk, deliberate manner.

"What's that scraping business for?" Jack asked, brow wrinkling in cautious puzzlement.

Scar flashed around, and for just a moment, there was the strangest expression on his crafty face, as if he'd been caught daydreaming dark thoughts-thoughts about what?-before a smile, smug yet charming like Carl's, came over his chiseled features.

"Oh, nothing Mr. Driscoll," Scar assured him. "It was simply a tsetse fly bite that demanded to be scratched." Ignorant that Scar had just bled off some of his antagonism by boldly scent-marking against him, Jack accepted-and very much sympathized with-the excuse.

"Hey, I understand the urge fella. They've been biting me to pieces too." But in spite of the friendly words, Jack remained very much on his guard, not taking his eyes off the dark-pelted lion. While the playwright was still unsure at this point whether Scar was truly as malevolent as Ann suspected and felt he was, everything about him, right down to that shark's smile and his slinking carriage, made him think of the villains in the Dick Tracy or Doc Savage strips he'd find tucked away in the papers.

Seemingly changing the subject, Scar asked, "Now what is that thing you're holding in your hands, my good sir?" eyes meditatively taking in the spear with the same considered look that a zoologist may give a new species of fish or insect.

"It's called a spear pal," Jack responded evenly while he drew himself erect. "It might look like just a pointed stick, but it can put a _good_ hole through anyone who tries to get gay with me or mine. Trust me on that one," he said, letting the lion that had threatened his dame know that she-and he-weren't to be trifled with.

Staying calm even under fire, Scar's features shifted into patterns of nervousness and confusion. "Are you making threats against me Mr. Driscoll?" he inquired gruffly. "What sort of individual are _you_ to be defensive when I have done utterly nothing to bother you or be a nuisance?"

"Nothing to bother us?" Jack repeated, giving a small, mistrustful staccato chuckle. "Last time I checked pal, _threatening __**Ann**_ like you did last night is something that bothers both of us quite a bit!" he said with pointed harshness.

Although his eyes widened slightly, Scar remained composed. "What leads you to believe that I actually committed such an uncouth action as that towards her, Mr. Driscoll? I am as respectful and accomodating towards our guests as His Majesty is, and would never even _conceive _of behaving otherwise. I suppose it is yet more hateful rumors about me being flung about, " he sighed wearily, leaf-green eyes rolling.

"Because Ann told me herself," Jack droned humorlessly, "and I know she's honest as an angel. She doesn't invent stories," he snapped, vibrating nerves almost daring Scar to say otherwise. He was _this _close to going bonkers on the kitty.

"Oh, of course she doesn't, Mr. Driscoll," Scar smoothly placated. "But perhaps she might've misinterpreted any seemingly aggressive actions on my part as being directed towards her-when they in fact were not?" he said suggestively, cocking his lean head and raising an eyebrow for emphasis.

Now Scar sounded remarkably like a prosecutor working on a witness to Jack Driscoll. "All right buddy, now you're pushing it," he snapped out, voice and muscles becoming as heated as the air around them. "If you're hinting that Ann doesn't know what she's even talking about, you have a lot of gall to be-"

With a shock, the writer was aware that his arms were starting to lever down towards the grass, his pointed stick pointing at Scar, who immediately jerked sideways and away a couple feet, grass-colored orbs wide. It infused Jack's psyche with a huge surge of confidence and smug assurance to understand that Scar understood that this spear was a weapon, and what it was capable of doing. Suddenly, he didn't feel so defensive and tensed up any longer, but-well, in control, to a degree.

Nonetheless, he frankly knew better than to start acting all macho and dominant towards a male lion. And as the Law of the Jungle optimistically advised, it might be that fair words would prevail. God knew he'd used them in lieu of a rumble before.

Lifting up his paw and smoothly lowering it, an admirably self-contained Scar advised him, " Now Mr. Driscoll, please do not become unduly aroused. You must put yourself into my situation, the particulars of which are something that your lovely Miss Darrow may have neglected to inform you about. I had just been told the _dreadful_ news after all"-and Jack thought he could see Scar clench his teeth on the word-" that my adored nephew and his friend had been menaced and nearly devoured by those revolting hyenas, and it frankly made me so furious at heart that I-"

"And I don't believe that any more then I believe that a horse will piss out scotch or wool will grow on a rat," Jack bluntly snorted.

"Ahh, but that's because you weren't there-and weren't inside my breast, feeling the passion that strikes one when they hear that someone important to them has been in mortal danger," Scar pointed out.

The lanky lion's words deeply touched a major nerve inside, and the writer felt his own lean face droop, remembering the piercing, agonizing scene his eyes had taken in from the bamboo platform-particularly how it had been sans Ann. Right on its tail was the soaring, bottomless current of gratitude he'd felt at seeing her safe and alive in the ape's lair.

Voice as soft as the constant tropic breeze, Jack softly replied, "No, I wasn't. But you'd be surprised how familiar I am with that kind of passion Scar-and on a deeper level than you'll probably ever fully know."

Delight made Scar's eyes twinkle like the surface of a lake, and transformed his cocky, smooth lupine sneer into a true smile for a few moments. The part of Jack that bothered to notice this assumed that it was because the lion had finally been able to get someone to understand his viewpoint, without leaping to conclusions and unfairly accusing him.

In reality though, Scar's grin was born of triumphant glee. He'd finally managed to slip the crowbar under the jewelry store's back door and pry it out a few centimeters. He certainly wasn't going to stop now.

Compressing his shiny black lips in sympathy, Scar nodded as he said, "I bet you are. The lionesses have told me all about the simply _horrid_ two days you and Miss Darrow endured on that _atrocious_ island. But you're both plenty secure with us here at Pride Rock-including me," he added with a disarming smile.

"You certain about that old boy?" Jack quipped half-jokingly.

"I'm positive," Scar sleekly assured. "Hopefully Mr. Driscoll, you can see by now that any wrongful impressions you or your dear Ann Darrow may have about me and my nature are ill-founded. Based on an unfortunate misinterpretation. My pique was directed at the hyenas, not with you humans," the lion said, giving another cordial smile that Ann would've recognized as manufactured.

His own mouth corners twisting slightly upwards, the writer responded, "Well that's a comfort to know," before returning the spear back to his reeking right armpit and tugging at the limp impala's horns once more.

"All the same, I feel so _terribly_ downhearted about how we've gotten off on the wrong paw. Therefore, I would like to make it up to you, Mr. Driscoll," Scar nobly proposed.

"Make it up how?" Jack panted through his exertions. "And please Scar, you can just call me Jack. The African plains isn't exactly the place for formalities in my opinion-at least when it comes to humans," he said wryly, giving a crooked grin as he briefly looked back up at Scar, now walking abreast of the impala.

"Suitable enough. Anyhow, first of all, I'd be _delighted_ to help you out by dragging your repast back to Pride Rock Jack," Scar generously offered. "Obviously, it would be a trying task and all that for you to accomplish single handedly."

"Lord knows that's the truth," Jack agreed, swiping the inverted bottom of his stained silk shirt over his forehead. "And that's a swell offer-if you don't mind?"

"Not at all," Scar conceded. "But before I do, I'd like to propose, as a further gesture of my goodwill, including you and Ann in a _**splendid**_ experience. You can also consider it an additional reward on my behalf for rescuing the cubs," he said temptingly, seemingly exhibiting munificent gratitude even as he couldn't resist giving the playwright a sharp stare of threat and an interior snarl.

Thinking that Scar's intent staring was only the cat's method of reading his reaction, Jack Driscoll innocently grinned as he commented "Sounds appealing. What sort of thing do you have in mind?"

Scar laughed lightly and replied, "All I'll reveal for now is that Mufasa has invited the two of you to join Simba for a truly marvelous event," giving the playwright a shrewd, glinting smile. "Since it's always ideal to tell the particulars only a little while before, I'll divulge more when we get back to Pride Rock and our dear Ann can listen in."

Dear Ann. Now that sort of talk towards his doll was more like it. "Okay," Jack nodded, voice made languid by the heat. Although the writer had a difficult time coming up with something that would gratify a lion cub while giving them enjoyment as well, the prospect of a diversion was appealing, besides prodding at his curiosity. And hey, as his mother had told him every Christmas, isn't it the sentiment behind it that counts? He definitely didn't want Scar to view him as rude by denying his peace offering.

At that gullible moment, like a black bear unable to resist the scent of burnt honey and old pastries in a pit, or a trout rushing without thought at a dry fly, the playwright accepted his enemy's bait.

Calmly backing off a few feet while these dangerous currents of thought slid through his head, holding the acacia spear in the relaxed posture that bespeaks trust, Jack Driscoll watched as Scar sidled up and bent down to the impala stag's graceful long throat. Then the black-maned lion clamped down, slung the antelope under and between his legs, and began to deliberately stride back through the red oat grass towards his brother's stone castle.

As he fell into step beside the lion which so resembled him,-unconsciously keeping a greater distance between them than he would've with Mufasa-Jack felt his brow briefly wrinkle in perplexity. It was understandable.

After all, Scar's jaws had closed on that impala's neck rather severely for a holding bite.

* * *

"Yuck! You'd really want to eat something cold and _nasty_ like that?" Simba asked incredulously, pulling back his lips and laying back his ears in disgust as he regarded the large sharptooth catfish Ann had just pierced lengthwise with a large, sharpened stick in preparation for roasting over the fire. 

After Jack had taken his leave and given her a few waves goodbye before heading southwest in search of larger league game, it had crossed her mind that it might be wise to see if she couldn't manage to grab a fish or two while she was here. Besides, it would be good to already have something on call for a meal while the red meat Jack would bring back was cooking, she'd figured.

While it was true that she had no tackle, no net or spear, and most of all not one bit of experience, she was also aware that the fish were even more naïve about humans-as-potential-threats-to-life than the land creatures were. Plus, unlike the other inhabitants of this incredibly surreal world, fish were evidently every bit as much dumb animals here as they were back home.

So, not too far downstream from where the idyllic waterhole opened out, Ann had subdued the 2-foot long fish, deep purplish gray in hue, by delivering a smashing blow to its head with a large rock, held in her right hand as she'd stealthily waded up to the catfish in the river's shallows.

She giggled and rubbed Simba's head.

"No, but that's why we cook it first. Tastes swell then."

"That's cool. I'd still never eat a _fish_ though, any more then I'd eat a bug," Simba said, eyeing the catfish suspiciously as Ann got into a kneeling position and extended the spitted fish over the flames. Like all cats-and especially young ones-he found her strange behavior to be keenly interesting, and for a time, simply watched her roast the fish that shared his moniker and whiskers, making some small talk and chattering as the actress slowly rotated the stick in her sweating hands.

But after a while, the lion prince became bored of it all, and left the guest cave to rejoin Sarabi, who like the other lionesses was sprawled out on her back somewhere nearby in a welcome patch of shade, legs akimbo and thinly furred white belly exposed to the breeze.

Eventually, after half an hour or so had passed, Ann decided that the catfish, now a misshapen, smoking flaccid mass of blackened, loosened scales and crisped, cracked fins, was suitably charred. Swinging the stick out of the flames, she carried it to the edge of their crude bed. Sliding one of her hands into a vacant handmade shoe, she anchored the catfish's head and carefully drew the stick out with the other.

Hungry as Ann was, and as appetizing as the fish smelt-though not necessarily _looked_-she reminded herself not to tuck in until Jack returned. A smile of reflective irony flowed across her lips. Here she and Jack were, in the midst of Darkest Africa, no other people but themselves, filthy, run ragged, greasy, sweaty, beyond disheveled-and in her case, more or less nude-and yet, she was eating food fit for a queen.

_If having flamingo for breakfast and catfish for an appetizer isn't eating royally, I don't know what is,_ she thought.

Getting to her feet and walking over to the cave's entrance, Ann laid down with her back against the cool granite and drifted into a sort of languid half-doze, waiting and listening for her boyfriend's return while she watched the brilliantly colored alpha male red-headed agama lizards do push-ups on the rocks and chase each other.

Finally, she heard that familiar, long, self-assured gait that she would've known anywhere approaching her and perked up in expectation. His footfalls sounded normal in their rythm, with none of the heaviness or shuffling that indicates a man is dragging anything or straining under a load.

"How's my beautiful dame doing this afternoon?" Jack greeted, spear still in hand as he came up onto the colossal stone spur, teeth shining alabaster in the glaring sunlight.

"Doing just splendidly," she replied, smiling back as she pushed herself to her feet and approached him. "Caught a catfish in the river right after you left," she informed him. "It's already cooked and waiting for us to eat in fact if we get too hungry while-wait, you _did_ kill something, didn't you Jack?" she asked with rising concern as her eyes swept up and down his wooden spear.

"Oh my Lord, you _failed_, didn't you?" Her voice began to rise in concerned frustration. "Oh Jack, you _promised-_"

"Easy Ann, don't start casting kittens now!" Jack hurriedly urged. "There's plenty of food for us now. I've brought a whole impala back, in fact."

"How could you have brought an impala back when there's no blood on your spear?" she demanded.

"I had the good luck to bump into a trio of cheetahs pulling one down, and well, I went and nailed it from them," he explained. "It's a nice big stag too."

"Cheetahs? Now there's a pelt this dame definitely wouldn't mind being clothed in. Too bad you didn't use your spear on one of them Jack," she half-quipped, giving a faintly wistful laugh.

Suddenly showing a vested intrest in his dress shoe clad feet, Jack awkwardly shifted from foot to foot a few times in what looked like shamed unease. "Sorry. I would've dragged one back here and skinned it for your clothing pleasure if I'd known." Raising his gaze to look back at her, he proposed, "If your heart's set on it Ann, I'll go out and clothe you with one as soon as my calves heal. How's that?"

"No need. I can make do just fine with the impala-hide line," she smiled. "And say, how far is it from here? I can help you get it up."

"Thanks, but neither of us have to haul it up. I'm having it delivered, after all," he said with a smirk of amusement.

"By who?" Ann inquired, eyebrows delicately knitting in perplexity.

Five seconds later, Ann Darrow got her answer as the tousled black mane, then the smug green eyes, exuding fake camaraderie, of Scar mounted above the lip of the ledge beyond Jack Driscoll. She saw Jack's confident, at-ease, _friendly_ demeanor around this lion that she didn't trust as far as she could throw, and put two and two together with a terrible shock of realization.

As the chiseled lion, the still impala dragging between his legs, came up, Ann felt the color drain out of her cheeks, a chilled feeling in her stomach and brain. In spite of the intense dry heat, she felt like someone had stuffed a rubber hose down her esophagus and flooded her gut with ice water.

The paranoid little section of her abruptly flared up in a centisecond, the voice that firmly maintained that good things never lasted and every person she loved would go away. It had temporarily vanished for that morning, but Ann had the sense that it was a whole different ball game now.

Releasing the impala's neck, Scar gave her a cultured smile and said, "Good afternoon Miss Ann Darrow. You seem rather surprised to see me."

_Yes. Yes, I am Scar,_ she said silently, soul burning with acidic misgiving. _But not exactly in a good way._

"Like I said on the way back Scar," Jack told him, "we'd like some time to get the skin off this fella and make ourselves an early dinner before Ann and I go with you and Simba to meet Mufasa."

Flashing Jack a look of both puzzlement and fogged apprehension, a part of Ann still saw Scar gracefully nod and heard him say, "Oh yes, by all means enjoy your repast Mister Driscoll." Then, with that indifferent, fluid, almost chilling way of walking, Scar turned and flowed off to the tip of the ledge.

While she guardedly watched him move away, Ann failed to hear a final thing Scar said under his breath, uttered so low that even the lizards and sparrows couldn't pick it up.

"After all," Scar reasoned in sick malice, "I've always maintained that a criminal deserves a satisfying last meal before being executed..."

_

* * *

_As some of you might already be able to figure out, Scar is planning to kill not just two, but four birds with one stone... And believe it or not, this chapter is shorter than I intended it to be. I originally meant for example, to have a bit between Scar and Nduli at the end where the leopard is shocked and annoyed that Scar didn't tell him that Jack was out hunting by himself-otherwise he'd have taken the human. At that point, Scar explains his specific plan for Jack and Ann. But then I realized Scar would be repeating himself, since he'd already told Nduli last night. Plus, leopards are _extremely_ patient creatures by nature. I also wanted to have more talk between Jack, Scar, and Ann at Pride Rock that would ultitmately lead to a still-wary Ann, hoping that Jack knew what he was doing and trusting in that spear, verbally agreeing to go along with them. But then my muse up and collapsed on me. :( Don't you hate it when that happens? I may still include that talk in the beginning of next chapter however, or just relocate to the gorge without any further ado. We'll see. 

Finally, as many of you may know, my city was struck by a terrible tragedy last week. While no family members, friends, or co-workers of mine were directly involved-thank the Lord-I'm definitely keeping all the fellow Minnesotans who lost lives or loved ones in the bridge collapse firmly in my mind and heart.

**Next Chapter:** Three Blind Mice!


	25. Three Blind Mice

(Is breathing hard) My goodness, I feel like I was participating right alongside our two protagonists in this chapter after writing it. While I feel that I'm very good at composing and typing up action scenes, actually doing the "choreography" for a lengthy, drawn-out one is a major struggle, make no doubts about it. This chapter is-at last!-the first in a climactic trilogy where both our hero and heroine'll be doing the "Desperation Samba" in deadly earnest-and with apologies to Jimmy Buffet too.

I also want to tell my readers three things: First, if you have managed to keep at my side during this journey without becoming bored and wandering off, I profusely thank you. Your patientice is about to be paid off in a big way. Second, this fanfic is about to live up to its T rating in a big way, so brace yourself. As I've drafted it, Nduli's personality profile is closest to the sociopathic/psychotic/gangbanger type. He talks very much like a gangbanger too, so consider your eyes and ears warned.

Third, I _know_ that the willingness and tenative trust-well, more or less-Jack and Ann display by going into the situtation they're about to be swept up in will likely be rather difficult to swallow for many readers, in spite of my best efforts to give it a whitewash of plausibility. However, there are more instances by _far_ in Jackson's King Kong where, under the banner of thrilling spectacle, we as viewers have our ability to suspend disbelief put under considerable strain, to say the least. Mine occur much less often and hopefully are far less obvious in comparison.

After _all_ those words, the only thing I have left to say is thanks so much to my loyal reviewers! Your reviews light up my waking days!

* * *

_Three blind mice,_

_Three blind mice._

_See how they run,_

_See how they run…_

Three Blind Mice, a Mother Goose Rhyme.

_Running about madly will not prevent death._ Swahili Proverb.

"Are we there yet Uncle Scar?" Simba asked for perhaps the forty-sixth time (although to be frank, Ann had lost count long before), restlessly skipping around as both humans followed close behind over the green plain.

Compressing his lips and slightly laying back his ears in wearied irritation, Scar replied, "I _told_ you, not yet Simba. But it's coming up ahead. See?"

Shading her pale brow with her hand, Ann squinted through the convection currents that roiled the air, and saw where the endless green lawn they'd been traversing stopped abruptly in a haphazard, jagged, impossibly long line about a quarter mile away. It was almost like Kong himself had dug out a colossal gully in the plain just for a lark, as her father would've said, ripping out vast lumps of soil and stone with those leathery, tree-trunk thick fingers.

A part of her wished like anything that the ape was here and alongside her, for her sense of distrust towards Scar and disquiet about where his seemingly friendly proposition was leading them multiplied with every mile of distance they put between them and Pride Rock, nervous fear chewing at her brainstem like a cow at a corncob. Lightly, she bit her lip and looked at Scar's claws, always partly extended, pricking the rich dirt as he sauntered on towards his goal. There was an aura of anticipatory pleasure exuding from the great cat, and Ann did not like it in the least.

Picking up on her unsettled state of mind, Jack looked over his right shoulder at her with a frown, replacing it with a small smile of reassurance that filtered up into his expressive olive eyes. Drawing closer to her side, he lightly brushed the side of her torso with the knuckles of his right hand. He didn't utilize his fingers, for they were coiled around a fire-hardened wooden spear.

Wordlessly, he pointed at it with his free hand, then gave a jerking nod towards Scar. The message was clear as the torrid sky. _I don't know why you're being such a jittery Jane about him, but if you still frankly think he has something up his sleeve, remember, I have no qualms about putting this spear in his chest if he tries to do away with us-not that he would in Simba's presence of course. _

She mustered a smile of reluctant confidence for his benefit. Her mind, clawing as it might to prevent itself from going down the slick slope, couldn't keep from conjuring back up the hardly conceivable, numbingly overwhelming scene of a similar weapon jutting out of the soundman's breast. But it looked a lot better-and was much more empowering-for Ann to then visualize it bursting out from between the shoulders of an even more surprised black-maned male lion trying to attack.

As is too often human nature, Ann Darrow chose to disregard what her intuition and heart told her, focusing on piecing together a comforting, appealing façade with her intellect. Yes, Jack had a strong arm and a spear to defend her. He was even keeping his body between her and Scar as they traveled, holding it in his right hand so that if the lion went for one of them, all the writer would need to do was execute a quarter-turn to meet him.

And if Scar was going to bump them off, why, for cripes sake, would he have brought Simba in tow? No sensible murderer wants to have a witness along for the fun if he can possibly help it, especially a prince and family member, Ann reasoned.

Unless he meant…

The chilling scenario slid into her skull like an aardvark's tongue, and her spine vibrated with incredulous fear. No. _No_. As slippery and cool as he behaved, Scar wouldn't stoop to _that_ too-not with the certain, savage wrath that Mufasa would bring down on his head for it.

Perhaps, the analytical portion of her told Ann conversationally, this was another bothersome instance of that paranoia about losing others getting the best of her. Couldn't an attempt to take a strained association and restarting it from square one be just that and nothing more? Christ knew she and Jack hadn't had a picture-perfect first meeting.

Then why did she have that constant, nagging feeling that she, Jack, and maybe Simba himself, were allowing an undertow to sweep them out, unresisting and foolishly complacent, into a pack of sharks? Why did the sight of Scar make her think of the native hag's cracking, hissed threat in last night's nightmare?

To tell the truth, when Scar had put forth the offer to her back at Pride Rock after she and Jack had eaten, just like with Carl at the diner, she'd almost flat-out refused to join the escapade. Everyone here all knew that Mr. Driscoll had taken the spear along in the first place more to humor his dame and provide a psychological crutch for her than anything else-despite Scar's level, coaxing protests that "It's _per_fectly safe where we're going. There's no need for a weapon."

"What time is it Jack?" she asked, trying to look across his chest at the Rolex Oyster.

Raising his wrist, he looked at the dial thoughtfully, replying, "Twenty to six, more or less."

"Thanks," she said vacantly, focused more on the gorge now, growing ever bigger through the heat haze as they advanced on it.

"Now Scar fella, remind me once more why you wanted us to come all the way out here just to meet up with Mufasa-especially when there's all sorts of other places we could've gotten together without having to walk this far," Jack prodded, his tone of voice half dry and half irked.

That wasn't an inappropriate question by any stretch as far as Ann Darrow was concerned either. After a wonderful, filling meal of catfish and roasted impala liver, and walking for 6-7 miles in such blazing heat, she understandably felt rather tired out. (Just like with the hare and the flamingo, the gruesome, sanguine, hacking process of cleaning had been too much for her blinkers to take in, and although she'd assisted Jack in his work by clutching the legs or horns of their prize in her hands and maintaining a steady backwards pull, she'd avoided actually looking at the disgusting results as passionately as if they'd been a basilisk.) Mercifully however, the air had begun to cool at around a quarter past four, so that had been one partial blessing for their journey.

Looking over his arching shoulder, Scar gave a smile that seemed a bit patronizing to Ann before saying, "I'm so _awf_ully sorry if the distance we have to travel inconveniences you Mr. Driscoll. But my dear brother is out on patrol as you know, and since this gorge is on his way, it's an i_deal_ place for him to meet you."

"I've never even _been_ to this gorge before," Simba excitedly cut in. "When Dad comes, he can show us all the cool sights here-That _is_ why you told me he wants me and Mr. Driscoll and Miss Darrow to come here, isn't it Uncle Scar?"

Scar laughed lightly. "Close my good lad, but no gazelle shoulder. No, it's even better than that, and I'll tell you what he'll do very soon."

"Very soon indeed," Jack remarked. Ann wasn't perplexed by his statement this time, for now they'd arrived at the gorge's lip, a place where the savannah made a roughly 550-600 foot drop down to a floor of weathered sandstone.

"Now that we've attained our destination, I suppose we'd best find a safe route in," Scar confidently remarked. Only 80 yards away or so was a deep, downward sloping tributary ravine leading into the gorge, and Scar led them towards it. For some reason, Ann couldn't help but suddenly think of Tennyson's poem The Charge of the Light Brigade as she approached it, most of all the lines about the cavalry regiment riding "into the valley of death." She wanted to nip in and then nip out of this place as swiftly as possible.

At the cusp Scar drew back, saying, "After you," in his cultured voice. Gathering up her courage even while she chewed at her lip in profound doubt and apprehension, Ann began to carefully make her way down the talus-strewn slope.

Simba accompanied her, ever the live wire as he bounced from rock to rock with a jubilant, zany kind of grace. Not nearly as adept on merely two legs, Ann kept the palm of her right hand flat against the rock face while she picked her way over the cracked, broken stone. Vaudeville might've have blessed her with agility, poise, and a sense of balance that was second to none when compared to most other women, but she still didn't want to take risks.

Then why was she being such a stupid hypocrite and taking an even more deadly one?

Hearing the unmistakable, clacking yet almost metallic sound of stone shifting, she looked over her shoulder, expecting to see Jack coming down to catch her up. Instead, it was Scar arrogantly descending, giving her a crafty leer that prickled her insides as he passed her. Managing to tear her transfixed eyes away, she raised them up to her boyfriend once more, standing indecisively on the upper edge of the sloping ravine.

Ann thought at first that he was working out the safest path or stance to use while picking his way downward with such a nice sharp object in hand. But then she realized Jack's gaze was twitching back and forth as he shifted very nervously from foot to foot, and he was breathing hard. The playwright's face was tense and strained, and Ann realized with a shock that Jack was deeply afraid.

He resembled a spooky horse that one day, although it'll stand _in front_ of its stall without any problem, suddenly decides that it won't dare walk _inside_ for anything. Did that mean-hopefully-that he'd finally come to his senses and realized that Scar was no good, not to be trusted, an enemy of theirs and not a friend?

"Is anything wrong Jack? Are you okay?" she gently ventured.

"I'm okay, but there's something wrong with this scene to me," he answered.

From further down below, Scar whirled around and assured Jack, a little too forcefully, "Wrong? Oh, there's nothing wrong about _this_. This is just an open gorge you're visiting Mr. Driscoll, perfectly benign."

"And that's the problem Scar," Jack spoke down to him in a tone of querulous flatness. "It's a _gorge_, and to be on the level, I don't want to have anything else to even remotely do with gorges as long as I live."

"I've been in this gorge dozens of times before, and no harm has ever come to me," Scar shrugged, trying to sound soothing.

"Scar old boy, you weren't in the last two I was in," Jack droned grimly, briefly closing his eyes as he drew a ragged breath.

Ann knew only too well what he was talking about-especially as it pertained to the second-and she for one didn't blame him in the least for now having a phobia/complex about chasms. The touch of her compassionate hand on his nape and shoulders happily seemed to provide emotional support and comfort to chase the fear away, and Jack gave her a grateful smile before half-quipping, "Thanks Lady Ann. Your white knight can take it from here."

But for all that, on reaching the gorge's floor, while a wound up Simba tore out into the open without a second thought, Jack still stopped and warily gave it an assiduous once-over, standing on tiptoe like a gigantic meerkat as he scanned to their left, then to their right. Ann couldn't help but mimic him. Nothing seemed wrong or threatening about it, at least not outwardly. Unlike Skull Island's, this gorge wasn't enclosed, narrow, twisty or brooding.

Instead, it was well lit and very open indeed, offering plenty of room to see and evade any attacker. There were no sharp bends or angles to offer a predator much in the way of cover or, as in the case of the Brontosaurs Jack had fled from, to conceal a bunch of herding animals until they burst out upon them without any warning. Even more relieving was to see that over to the left, the gorge proper originated from an impressively steep, 65-75 degree incline, so it was very unlikely anything dangerous would be coming from that direction.

As she and Jack walked out from the side ravine's mouth, Ann noted that unlike on the plain, few other animals were sharing the gorge with them. Eight or ten lesser striped swallows kited up and down the gorge's length on their crescent wings, and maybe two hundred and twenty yards away, she noticed the thick vermilion whip that was a red spitting cobra writing calligraphy in the sand as it serenely crossed from their side of the gorge to the other. Overwintering from Serbia, a disinterested rock kestrel panted from her perch atop one of the isolated trees that had somehow managed to take root here and there in this cragged, dusty desolation, like specks of lichen growing on a fossil bone.

It was hardly a wonder why the kestrel was panting. Reflected from and imprisoned by the enormous walls of stone, the heat down on the gorge's floor was savagely intense. If the plains had felt like an oven at their worst, this gorge felt like a sandstone crucible.

Once more, Ann yearned for Kong's presence. His bulk would make an ideal canopy of shade to travel in. And if danger reared its head, he could spirit her out of here and up those cliffs before one could say Tarzan of the Apes. Ordinarily, a smile would've curved her lips at the thought-but now there was just that roiling, faintly vibrating feeling in the pit of her stomach. Their present location looked nothing like the native village or the elephant graveyard-but why did it still feel so _eerie_, an eeriness that seemed to increase with every careful stride she prodded herself into taking? No cicadas droned or grated, no doves slurred or cooed, no grasshoppers scraped or chirped down in here.

The strange nervousness being generated by the place in Ann was evidently lost on Simba. Pouncing at random spots in the sand just to make the dust fly up as he kept pace with his grim uncle, he asked cheerfully, "So when is Dad coming? And where's he gonna meet us?"

"Very soon my lad," Scar distantly responded. "Just a few minutes in fact. And you see that tree there?" he indicated with his paw. "That's where we shall meet him."

Sweating in the heat, Ann and Jack followed Scar and Simba over to a wild olive. As they did so, they occasionally had to step over or around the scattered pits dug into the sand and dust by larval ant lions, conical death traps that funneled other incautious insects down to where the builders lay buried in ambush, caliper jaws agape. In their own way, both humans and the lion prince were stepping over the edge of an equally cunning and efficient pit trap.

The wild olive's shade extended a blessed offer of sanctuary from the heat, and despite her ambiguous expectation of danger, Ann Darrow was only too happy to take advantage of it. Folding her legs underneath her, she took Jack's free hand and helped guide him down. As he seated himself, the writer stared at her arm and frowned. "You're sweating Ann," he commented, a tone of slight concern to his voice.

"Yeah," she panted. "The sooner this is done and we're back in the breeze, the better."

Her attention was redirected by Scar talking. "Now you wait here with Jack and Ann," he told Simba. "Your father has a _mar_velous sur_prise_ for you, especially his son."

"You think anything that would please a lion would matter all that much to us?" Ann quipped to Jack on the sly.

White teeth flashed in the shade's darkness, and Jack just shrugged. _Not really, but then, they can speak, so who knows?_

Hardly able to contain himself, an intrigued Simba enquired, "Ooooh. What is it?"

"If I _told _you, it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?" Scar slyly parried.

"If you tell me, I'll still act surprised," Simba prodded hopefully. Jack couldn't help but give a wry smirk of understanding at the clever attempt as Ann felt a smile tug at her own mouth corners.

Apparently amused himself, Scar smoothly half-chuckled, "Ho ho ho…you are such a _naughty_ boy!"

Placing his forepaws on his uncle's shoulder, Simba thinly pleaded, "Come on, Uncle Scar."

"No no no no no no no," Scar strung out in emphasis. "This is just for you, our human friends, and your daddy," he pointed out, green eyes briefly meeting and boring at Ann's before dropping again. "You know, basically a sort of father-son…thing…with a special guest or two besides…" he casually specified, dismissively rotating his paw.

Simba pouted in resentment for a few moments, plainly frustrated by his uncle's unwillingness to spill the beans. "Trust me buddy, it's always way more fun when someone doesn't squeal before the fact," Jack informed the lion cub, and Simba seemed to take some heart from it.

"Quite so," Scar concurred. As if he'd been abruptly reminded of something, Scar leapt erect and declared, "Well! I'd better go get him."

This was absolutely news to Ann. And it was oddly calming as well. She'd thought that Scar would stay with them down in this gorge the whole time until Mufasa arrived in due course. It never had struck her that the black-maned male intended to rendezvous with his brother and accompany him back with-whatever diverting spectacle or royal gift the lion king meant to present to her and Jack. At any rate, Scar couldn't strike any of them down when he was absent, and that was plenty swell to her. Just like last night, she had the conviction that the less time she and Jack spent in the lion's company, the better.

"I'll go with you," Simba merrily said, leaping from his rock.

"**NO!" **Scar fiercely, almost desperately snapped. Virtually bursting out of her skin with surprise, as a newborn garter snake punches through the transparent membrane that enveloped it in the womb, Ann couldn't help but give an immediate, startled cry at the outburst, readily accepting the prompt security of Jack's arms clasping around her body.

Scar gave Simba the strangest look for a second, like he'd almost given the game away, before regaining his composure and unconvincingly laughing, "Heh heh heh," as if the matter had been one big joke. "No. Just…stay on this rock. You wouldn't want to end up in another mess like you did with the hyenas…" The implication drifted in the air.

"You _know _about that?" Simba gasped, his eyes widening in shock.

Carefully pulling herself loose from Jack's arms, Ann realized that her breathing was labored from fear, and fought to control it. Turning, she stared back, dreadfully serious, at Jack's agitated angular face. _NOW do you believe me? Now do you think that there's a chance he may actually be trying to pull something?_

"Simba, everybody knows about that," Scar revealed almost condescendingly.

"Really?" Simba asked. Both the poor thing's voice and his body were slumped and crestfallen with humiliated embarrassment.

"Oh, yes," Scar droned. "Lucky these two _wonderful_ heroes and Daddy were here to save you, eh?"

"Scar, lay off the poor kid about it okay?" Jack firmly interjected.

Other than a barely perceptible backward twitch of his ears and a flip of his tail, Scar completely ignored the playwright, putting a paw on Simba's shoulder and conspiratorially continuing, "Oh…and just between us, you might want to work on that little roar of yours, hmm?"

"Oh…Okay…" Simba muttered, seemingly at a loss about how to reply or what was meant.

After a good-natured pat on his nephew's head, Scar turned and began to fluidly stroll back the way they'd all come. "Keep a _good_ watch on him," Scar requested as an afterthought. For Ann the command hardly registered. She was too busy releasing her pent-up breath and loosening the steel pipes from around her muscles as that lion _finally_ went away.

A thought occurring to him, Simba shouted to his uncle's retreating back, "Hey, Uncle Scar?…Will I like the surprise?" Evidently he too had considered the possibility that one species would be far more pleased than the other by Mufasa's gesture.

Scar stopped, began to speak, and then halted. Turning over his tawny shoulder to give the cub a fox's smile, Scar fervently promised him, "Simba, wa ni _katikafariki_ kwani."

"He's speaking in Swahili," Jack muttered.

"And what's so secret that he can't use English?"

"Nothing is, he just basically said that it'll be excellent," Simba perkily informed them from his perch atop the rock. "Man, this is almost more excitement than I can take!"

If he'd only known…

* * *

Concealed in the grass growing on the eastern side of a rock triangle, almost seeming to be fused to the earth, Nduli waited with extraordinary patience for his cue, ears laid back as his good eye peeked over at a massive herd of grazing wildebeest. He was hungry, both for flesh and to indulge in the thrill of dealing out death. Being only a leopard, he lacked the ability to count any higher than five-and far less to mentally grasp that this herd contained around a thousand times that number of individuals. 

The only thing Nduli understood was that the herd contained an absolute _shitload_ of yearlings, some within easy range of him, and that he was so tempted to flash out, crash against one, and drive his teeth into its bearded throat. But he knew when the most opportune time to make the strike was. Like his master and partner, he knew how to defer natural impulses and not complain about having to do it in the interim-unlike some animal allies he had the misfortune of knowing.

Beneath and a little way in front of where the leopard tom crouched, there was a timid, growling sound. It was worrying that he could hear it even up here. One of the three hyenas, most likely Banzai, was evidently having trouble demonstrating something that vaguely resembled self-control. Again.

Nduli couldn't help but roll his eyes in slight contempt. He wondered at times why Scar had chosen to surround himself with hyenas. They didn't even act like decent, real, predators should, haphazardly running their prey down instead of expertly stalking unseen to within only several body lengths of it, whooping and cackling until every creature for fucking _miles_ knew that they were on the prowl, and allowing themselves to become covered in dried mud, blood, or anything else stinky enough to be worth rolling in…rather than staying clean and at least halfway presentable.

"Shut up," Shenzi snapped out from below the leopard. That hyena at least, had sense in her head.

"I can't help it," another voice whined back. Yeah, it was Banzai. Go figure. "I'm so hungry-I _gotta _have a wildebeest!!"

_Quiet, you frigging moron!_ Nduli silently implored.

"_Stay put_," Shenzi sharply ordered.

"Well…can't I just pick off one of the little sick ones?" Banzai asked reasonably. For Chaka Chui's sake…

"_No_!" Shenzi admonished firmly. "We wait for the signal from Scar."

As if summoned on cue then, Nduli saw his very-soon-to-be-royal master appear atop a squared granite pinnacle, ebony mane blowing in the wind. This was it, he thought ecstatically.

"There he is…let's go," Shenzi said stonily. She and her two companions then rushed out into the leopard tom's field of vision. Taken totally off guard, the wildebeest snorted in alarm, wheeling in panic as the demented whoops and cackles of the hyenas lacerated the air.

Nduli was only too happy to join the fray himself, leaping out from the patina of grass like a spring and vaulting down to the plain. Transforming into a yellow streak of muscle, he flew at the closest members of the herd like a dart, snarling and slashing at their hocks and tails while his hyena partners separated to toothily snap again and again at the hind legs of other wildebeest.

The herd had nowhere to flee without having to face their adversaries-except immediately west, smack into the gorge. And in one massive, jarring, fear-maddened conniption, bulls and cows, young and old, all bunched together and launched themselves over the brink.

* * *

In the wild olive's shade, offering such welcome protection from the reflected heat, Ann, hugely relieved by Scar's absence, sat with Jack and Simba, lying on his tummy and more than a bit cross over his uncle's parting suggestion. 

"Little roar," the lion prince spat ruefully. "Puh!"

"I didn't think it was that trivial," Jack humored him. "It certainly got my attention when we were fighting the hyenas."

"Me too. And it's more than I could've managed if I was in your shoes," Ann added. "You'll get there."

"Thanks," Simba said, mustering a cheered half-smile. At that moment, a male Jackson's chameleon, methodically swinging his tongish feet forward in the drugged, deliberate fashion of all chameleons on the go, crawled down from the branches and quite close to Simba. He brought back to Ann's mind recollections of the sapient deep-sea beings in H.G. Wells' _Into The Abyss_.

Despite almost certainly possessing sentience himself though, this one was evidently more focused on his destination then on worshiping the humans as deities, showing no reaction even when Simba rose and gave a challenging "_Rowarr_!"

She couldn't help from laughing at the sight: not only because of how cute it was in itself, but also from a kind of pride at watching Simba giving it his best shot. Jack too, chuckled through a skewed grin.

Paying them no mind, Simba blithely leapt down from the rock he was perched on and let forth a second, louder "Rrrraowr-nh!" The chameleon still showed little reaction. With even more determination, the prince followed, came closer, inhaled deeply, and produced a wildcat-worthy "**RAWOR!**" It echoed off the gorge walls, and made the startled, strange horned lizard leap as high as his legs would allow him before scrabbling away over the sand.

Ann gently applauded in praise and smiled as Jack softly laughed, declaring "That's just how it's done buddy, just how it's done," as Simba erected his ears and looked back at them, basking in both his human friends' praise and the sound of his echoes.

As Jack stood, took a few strides, and bent down in order to rub the cubs' back with a broad hand, the echo began to be painted over by a new sound. It was strange and indiscernible to Ann Darrow, and the former stage actress felt confusion envelop her as she somewhat anxiously got to her reed-shod feet. Was this a cousin of yesterday's inexplicable music at the waterhole?

A look at Jack Driscoll's face brutally disabused her of the idea. Before him and Simba, pebbles were convulsing, and although the lion cub seemed every bit as at a loss as Ann, the proud, eye-lightening smile on the writer's face was substituted by one of dawning alarm, then abject terror.

"Jesus Christ, not _this_!" he thinly exclaimed, green eyes expanding. Flashing around, the playwright intently gave the wild olive a panicked, momentary once-over from top to bottom. Then, evidently pole-vaulting into another course of action, he desperately commanded, "Ann, keep between me and the wall, and run like hell, fast _as your legs can carry you!!!_"

With that, Jack Driscoll automatically, promptly, began to dash down the gorge, spear clutched in his right hand, the pointed end sticking out over his shoulder. Puzzled, yet instinctively perceiving that something was very wrong, Ann dared to clap her peepers on the gorge's head for a few snatched seconds, her cobalt blue eyes and concern level swiftly rising in unison. Initially, in spite of the mounting shuddering, only a great flock of spooked African black crows and wattled starlings winging up into the air was visible. Didn't seem worrisome. Then, over the lip of the gorge, like a black avalanche, poured the advance guard of a wildebeest herd.

Crazily, the first thought that struck her was: _My goodness, how can they rush down a steep slope like that without tumbling head over heels?_ Then the dreadful gravity of the situation leapt up into her breast like a bear charging out of its cave, and Ann broke into a frantic, sand-eating run herself.

Passing a stupefied Simba, his ears smashed against his head as if in imitation of her cloche hat, she caught up to Jack in a few pumping strides and veered to his left side in acquiescence to his terror-infused order, sandwiching her slender form between him and the gorge. Reaching out with a dark-tinted hand even as he ran, Jack's fingers interlocked with hers while he ruefully huffed out, "You were too right, and I ignored you like a sap Ann."

"Right about what?" she enquired in puffing perplexity.

"_That Scar would take us for a ride, that's what!!_" Jack shouted.

"But Scar isn-" Ann began. Then she was drowned out by the bone-shaking drumroll of the wildebeest herd as its lead members gained on them with terrible rapidity, froggy grunts resounding ever louder in their ears.

Regardless of their rocking, clownishly awkward running style, an adult wildebeest in good condition can reach a speed of 46 miles per hour at full gallop. Even a reasonably fit calf can outrun a hyena on its first day of life if it has a decent head start. At full tilt, the average human being can only run a third as swiftly.

In her peripheral vision, Ann noticed with dismay that even young Simba, now released from his uncomprehending paralysis, was dashing down the middle of the gorge faster than they, although that wasn't fast enough either to prevent the herd from unwittingly running him down. Still, as Jack tugged her along, Ann bravely accelerated in another desperate burst of speed, racing from the herd as fast as she had from the tyrant lizards. It was just that there was no Kong here to save her this time, her mind screamed.

The center of the canyon seemed to be the path that the greatest mass of the droning antelope intended to stick to, and Jack roared in command, "Over here Simba!!" But the panicked lion cub either couldn't hear him or was too overwhelmed with panic to understand. To her profound horror, Ann saw him vanish under the bodies of the head animals several dozen yards in front of her and Jack.

There was no time to feel anything else before the inevitable occurred and the hoofbeats of the left flankers were abruptly at, then paralleling their churning heels. As the first goatish heads and bearded throats invaded her vision, Ann rent the heated air in a scream of helpless terror. Desperately drawing even closer against her, Jack changed his grip on the handmade spear and wielded it like a cattle goad with his free right hand, repeatedly giving the passing animals a quick, sharp jab in the shoulder hump in order to turn them and keep others away. Each wildebeest leapt up as if it had just had an electrical shock administered and made a truncated groan of distress on receiving the nasty prod.

As dust erupted into the air around them, the sight made a sort of semi-hope flash through Ann's soul. But then she saw that they had to run at least 350 yards to reach a cleft big enough to shelter in or use as an escape route. They'd never make it that far, and the knowledge of this hopelessly futile goal made her feel so despairingly sick at heart.

As if he'd just been using psychic powers, Jack firmly grunted, "I know, but don't stop running. We're going to get out of this." As if begging to differ with the playwright, a wildebeest cow's head caught him behind the right shoulder and flank at that instant, hitting him with 350 pounds of force. He cried out, and the sky suddenly skewed in Ann's vision as Jack fell to one knee, dragging her down as she windmilled with her left, then suddenly free right arm.

As he used the spear's butt end as an anchor, Ann regained her balance and then lunged to grab his left hand for additional support. As they started to stand erect, another cow leapt right over their clasped hands, missing them with her forelegs but clipping them with her hind ankles. It sent a hot wire of pain through both their hands, but they fought it off and resumed running.

This time they both ran separately, Ann's arms pumping fiercely as she and Jack did their damnedest to stay within 8 feet of each other, sidestepping and dodging and leaping and curving and flinching to keep from tripping or worse being knocked down.

Everything was one massive, constant, universe-encompassing jar, reminding Ann of how the Venture's deck felt whenever the steamer's engines were operating at full speed. Shaking and dust and glaring light and glinting horns and searing lungs and tossing manes and feet/hooves flying over the ground and Jack Driscoll bounding over the stone and sand alongside her, near whenever possible, sometimes further away.

During her many years in vaudeville, Ann had found herself required to perform all sorts of acts that involved a fellow performer or an animal leaping over or on top of her, ducking comedic blows or missiles from behind or turning to block them, until she'd developed a well-honed sense of spatial perception that made her almost flawless at telling how close a moving object coming from behind was to her, and precisely when to react to it.

Today it served her very well, tipping her off to when a wildebeest's horns or head began to ride her a little too closely and when she should cut into a gap between two animals. Jack wasn't as accomplished, and to Ann's horror paid the price when a bull got him between the shoulders with his horn boss, throwing him to the ground. The sight of Jack crashing spread-eagled against the stone with such an awful _smack_ and a wavering cry was unbearable-made even more so when several more wildebeest tap danced on him in succession before he was able to roll on his back and jab another animal in the pit of the left foreleg, turning it and gaining just enough space to stand up.

Distracted by the distressing sight and not thinking about anything else but helping Jack, Ann ran right for him-and was blindsided by another wildebeest cow. With an ear-splitting scream of shock and pain, Ann saw the tawny stone rushing up from the left as she heavily struck the ground, catching herself with an elbow. She pawed and kicked, but couldn't get up for wildebeest hooves chopping at her thighs, flanks, and shoulders with bruise-worthy strikes. Then Jack was above her again, turning a two-year-old bull that was putting his front hooves into her ribs away with a slug between the eyes in addition to a rather serious spear prod.

"Jeez, are you okay Ann?" he yelled in true fear as she managed to regain her feet. Nodding, she resumed her flight down the gorge, through the storm of dust and wildebeest. The middle of the gorge was becoming packed, and now the spillover of clumped animals was reaching them. A yearling sideswiped Jack from left field, the playwright somehow catching himself with his right elbow against the flank of a passing cow before he could fall. Shoulder to shoulder, two more cows, a big bull, and a yearling forced Ann apart from him, and she was nicked by the bull's left horn. As Jack struggled to get back to her side while they both scrambled to avoid another collision with a herd member, Ann sharply dodged to evade one cow that she sensed was right at her back, only to be rammed obliquely from the left by another.

"Ann!! No!!" Jack yelled helplessly as the badly off-balance actress had the evil luck to plunge her right foot into a rock hollow and fall to the stone once more, the force of the impact ringing through the heels of her hands and up the bones of her arms. There was a profoundly worrisome, flaming pain in her ankle, and a part of Ann wondered in numb horror if she'd just irrevocably sealed her fate of being trampled to death through a break or twist down there.

As Jack's voice screamed out her name again and again, all that registered in her vision was the rickety, cloven-hoofed legs of wildebeest and the swirling dust that they kicked up. _So this'll be the last sight I ever see,_ a sector of Ann thought clinically. Jack bellowed, "For chrissak-unh!!" Somewhere close by, even as Ann Darrow went fetal and tried to roll, a cow uttered a spectral groan of heartfelt alarm. Ann could sympathize all too well with how she felt.

Once more, Jack appeared above her, face a strained portrait of terror. Fresh blood oozed from a scrape on his forearm and a short tear on his chest.

"Oh God Ann! _Get up_ and keep running!"

"I don't know if I _can_ run anymore Jack," she replied, voice wiry with panic.

As the understanding stabbed him, Jack stared back at her with an expression very like nausea. In the next instant his body was draped over Ann's, gallantly shielding her from the pulverizing hooves. A desperately probing, scratching part of her mind came to the decision several drifting moments later that even though her ankle _might've_ sustained some trauma, it was very minor and wouldn't prevent her from continuing to run.

"Jack, I think I can still run after all. Let me up," she commanded firmly.

Drawing back, Jack's green eyes, profoundly frightened and confused at the same time, linked with her blue ones. "Are you absolutely sure?" he shouted over the noise of the stampeding herd. "I'll keep covering you or carry you over my shoulder if that's needed!"

"Yes, I am!" she shouted back, getting up on her feet once more. "I'm fine!"

After a couple moments of anxious, skeptical consideration, the writer panted out, "We can't call ourselves fine until we reach the cleft!" his back to her as he turned another wildebeest bearing down on them by strong-arming the side of its muzzle with the spear shaft. As Ann's legs started to propel her down the gorge once more, Jack flanked her for several more seconds-until a pair of cows butted them apart.

* * *

"No!!" Jack yelled, almost gagging on his fear as the wildebeest duo knocked them apart. They would be trampled to a pulp long before reaching a chance for safety, he knew, black despair pressing at his eyes. But he knew with a grim certainty that if and when Ann reached that point where she truly could no longer keep going, he would flop down on her and shield that angel frame with his own, covering her like a buffering mattress of flesh. 

Flesh. Cover. Buffer. Flop down. The words and concepts disengaged themselves and came together in a loosely gathered assemblage inside the playwright's skull, even as he ran for his life. Then they triggered the memory of a terrifyingly similar situation's denouement, and how it had come about.

Jack Driscoll pawed through the awful photo album that Skull Island had locked inside his head. A chopper, an Aquilasuchus effortlessly running and rock-vaulting, and wounded dinosaur legs… He thought too, of a method that farmers used to punish cattle and horses for misbehavior or plain screwing around.

Fighting and zigzagging back through the wildebeest over to Ann's side, he tossed the spear to her. Plucking it out of the air, she fixed him with a blank, wide-eyed look as he shouted, "Hang on to that and hold them off with it until you see me come back."

"What are you go-"

There was no time at all to explain. "I'm going to level the playing field," Jack sharply proclaimed. Wheeling around, he flashed into the space between two wildebeest cows and tore back in the direction they'd come. Executing the first stage of the plan, the determined playwright went straight for the biggest bull that he could see through the dust and was reasonably close, an animal that he estimated as weighing perhaps 420-440 pounds.

Despite the speed at which the animals ran, approaching the stampeding wildebeest head-on made it much easier to swerve around and avoid them instead of merely blindly running before the Picasso-esque antelope like he'd been doing. They were nothing more than barriers, obstacles to go around, just like whenever he'd be driving New York's streets. Instinctively intimidated by his foreign human figure rushing so aggressively toward them through the dust, many wildebeest even parted before Jack as best they could, making the job that less difficult.

Darting among them like a quarterback, Jack Driscoll's path to his target opened then, both human and wildebeest straight on a collision course with the other. Flawless timing would be everything now. Drawing his right arm back even while he ran, Jack's fist connected hard with the bull's broad, spreading nose that the playwright had joked about only 24 hours ago as being so uncannily like his own.

Surprised, the coldcocked bull's sheep eyes widened as he wildly flinched, exposing his striped left shoulder. Still maintaining his momentum, Jack dropped into a squatting position, clamped onto the bull's left leg above the elbow joint with both hands, and shoved upwards, using every ounce of his weight as leverage. There was a terrible, ghastly, almost explosive, popping noise, and the wildebeest bull groaned in agony as he pitched forward. As Jack leapt back and away, the bull turned in his direction and tried to stand up, but failed to get beyond a half-erect sprawl. The creature's shoulder had been dislocated.

Unable to stop, other wildebeest crashed into the fallen bull as Jack turned and tore down the gorge to rejoin Ann, tripping over and trampling their fellows. The playwright felt an awful dagger of regret at what he had just done to the poor fella, inflicting such horrible agony and almost certainly dooming him to die. Still, it had worked splendidly in favor of survival, and the result of the pile-up taking place behind him was a kind of corridor, a path occupied by far less trampling hooves and smashing heads. To be on the level, he felt pretty goddamn clever about himself-and amazed that he would ever end up being grateful to Bruce for _anything_.

Seeing the figure of Ann still running through the dust, he forced his straining legs into another turn of speed to catch up. As he got closer, he saw a flash of blue feathers above that materialized into Zazu, the hornbill's face choked by almost overwhelming fear as he zoomed down the gorge. Following the majordomo's trajectory, Jack saw him stop in the air, taken aback by horror, then plunge down to where an upside-down Simba was clinging precariously to the dead, dusty, termite-eaten remnant of a bush or tree.

Seeing Zazu approaching, the scrabbling cub imploringly yelled, "Zazu! Help me!!" Jack was silently amazed that he could still hear that wild, pained child's voice even over the earth-shaking percussion of hooves and so many nasal drones.

Of course, there was precious little Zazu could really do, except fortify Simba with the assurance that "Your father is on the way! Hold on!"

"Hurry!!" Simba cried, beginning to lose his grip as Zazu left.

"Don't bother with getting help for us too old boy," Jack remarked dryly in offended surprise. But he couldn't rightly feel bitter towards Zazu for putting his ducks in a row among this awful confusion. God knew that only a single priority and virtually nothing else had been compressing his brain and tunneling his vision on Skull Island.

Besides-if Zazu had even noticed them-the hornbill had probably assumed that as adults, he and Ann could cope with this dreadful mess a hell of a lot better then Simba would manage. They'd strive mightily to see if that assumption on his part was correct, Jack thought as he ran up to Ann, the actress jabbing another cow away with his spear.

"I'll take that pig-sticker back now," the playwright stated with a kind of lunatic half-humor as he regained his flanking position. Seeing him back and okay, Ann's pale face slumped with relief before she tossed the acacia spear back to him.

As Jack deftly switched the weapon from his left hand to his right, she shouted over the rumble, "I don't know what you did back there, but you did a swell job of making things a lot safer."

"Comparatively so," he dryly replied. The nearest cleft was actually, mercifully within reach now, but they couldn't pretend to be out of the woods yet. "We're almost there. See?" he indicated, pointing at it as the distance shortened.

Her huge soulful eyes gazed fearfully at him, past him. "We've got to make a break through this and rescue Simba before he slips Jack!! He can't hold on much longer! Look!" she indicated, voice badly winded and panting.

Jack wanted to say _I know_, but didn't feel he wanted to waste his rapidly declining stamina any more than he needed to, so only nodded. "First I'm going to get us out."

Before Ann could reply, Zazu's voice chopped through the air from the far side of the gorge. "There! There! On that tree!" he specified.

* * *

Her legs glowing structures of frail cardboard, Ann turned at the sound of Zazu's voice and saw that both Mufasa and Scar had arrived. Perched on a low ledge roughly across from where she and Jack were still in flight, the scene made a burst of thankful hope and a sinking feeling of twisting dread compete for ownership of her heart. Hope because Mufasa's presence meant that Simba now actually stood a good chance of getting out alive, piercing terror because despite his aghast appearance, Ann knew this was the moment when Scar was going to do his stuff, and she didn't see a way that anyone could stop it. 

"**Hold on Simba!!**" Mufasa shouted out, almost overpowered by fear for his son.

In the next instant, as if things weren't hanging by a thin enough thread-in an almost hellishly literal sense-, a panic-stricken young cow rammed into Simba's crude refuge, half-breaking it with a dry crack that sounded as sickening to Ann as a breaking bone. Her beseeching "_**Oh God in Heaven!"**_ mingled with Simba's wrenching "**Ahhhh!!!**"

It was definitely more then Mufasa could stand to see either, vaulting off his stone perch and successively bounding down a series of lower outcrops like an india-rubber ball until connecting with the gorge floor, and immediately courageously plunging into the herd. A wildebeest is about as tall as a hay bale at the shoulder, and it occurred to Ann that Mufasa might not be able to see Simba and his tree through the dust and darkening sky as well as she could.

Another yearling clumsily shoved Jack, the playwright fighting to, then somehow maintaining, his balance even while on the run. For a few moments, a straining lump in her throat, she was unsure of whether to keep rocketing forward or to cut across and dodge wildebeest until she got to Simba. She was agile. She could probably pull it off. They were just about neck and neck with Simba now…

The side ravine's entrance and the promise of safety and escape it offered was only a few dozen yards ahead, separated from the gorge bottom by an outcrop of stone about 6-7 feet tall, and that clinched Ann Darrow's decision. With one last, straining burst of adrenaline-fueled speed, Jack not far behind, she passed the struggling Simba by and came up to the outcrop's base.

At the edge of her vision, she saw red fur flash through the dust, a burst of relief sweeping through her equally fast. Mufasa was staying on track and knew what to do.

Turning, she leapt with all her remaining strength at the outcrop's upper rim, once, twice, thrice, like a desperate gazelle hurling itself at a steep bank at the end of a river crossing before a crocodile can crush its life out in those spiked jaws. It was too high!

The comforting strength of Jack's arms enveloped her around the waist from behind, and he yelled, "I'm going to throw you up! Get ready to grab the edge!" His angular body lowered, then heaved underneath her, and Ann found herself bouncing up into the air, ivory arms flashing out to embrace the rock. Digging her fingers in, heedless of a scraped calf, she hauled herself up onto the outcrop and gratefully filled her aching, burning lungs with air. Even up here, the stone thrummed like a railroad tie.

There was another dry, fibrous snap nearby through the clouds of dust. Turning, Ann saw Simba being ejected into the air, rotating over and over in slow motion before her horrified eyes with a "**Yahhhaaaahhhh!!!**" of complete panic.

The actress was only even distantly aware of seizing the wooden spear that Jack chucked up to her. Then, mercifully, miraculously, as if they'd been performing a stage act themselves, Mufasa erupted out of the stampeding herd to pluck Simba from mid-flight in those great jaws.

Jack's long fingers clamping on to the outcrop's lip yanked her attention away, and she extended her arm to take one of his mitts of hands, providing whatever anchorage she could as both arms got purchase, then levered his head and upper torso into view.

"Thanks. I can take it over doll," he gratefully panted, dust and sweat smearing his hair and face. Evidently he'd managed to stick his toes into a small crevice or on a ribbon of stone, for the writer remained suspended for a few moments, catching his breath and eyes flooded with relief as he looked up at her. Wordlessly, Ann reached out and curled her fingers over his forearm, stroking his hairline with the other.

Jack gave a small, touched smile-then, as if a demon had leapt out of the rock itself to snatch him, a wildebeest bull crashed into his hip, getting a horn hooked under his belt and knocking him loose, carrying the unpleasantly surprised playwright away back into the stampede.

"**JAACCCKKK!!!****" **Ann shrieked at the top of her lungs. Close by, Mufasa roared in shock and surprise, as if joining in with her horror-stricken outburst. She saw Jack wildly claw at the bull's face for a few crazy seconds, like a defensive raccoon does when a hound is lunging for its guts, then push up and fall away into the churning dust. It was so thick she couldn't see him, her eyes desperately gouging through the pounding, swirling, droning mass of dust and wildebeest.

Then, just as Ann was coiling her legs in preparation to leap back into the great herd after him, he popped up out of the chaos like a prairie dog. Fidgeting for a split second, his eyes focused on her and he shot across the intervening distance. Without even coming to a stop, he launched himself back at the ledge, his momentum somehow heaving half his body over. Jack's hands hit the stone from above, teeth gritting as his chest struck a moment late with a hollow_ SMACLOP_!

Legs still hanging in empty space, the playwright crawled forward a foot or two, than flopped limp, blood generously flowing from that Semitic nose and dripping into the dust. As awful as that was to see already, Jack's breathing was now coming in tearing, heated, half-squealing gasps. He sounded like an overheated radiator, or a brutally overworked horse. Ann wondered with powerless nausea if he'd broken a rib somewhere in the stampede-an all too likely possibility-and the bone had pierced or nicked a lung, collapsing it.

"Jack, what's happened to you?" she fearfully inquired.

His voice came, wiry and screeching, after a few moments. "Wind's knocked out of me. He began it, rock finished it. It'll come back," he added painfully.

As he pumped new air into his violently emptied lungs, Ann heard Simba yell "**DAD!**" in despair from across the gorge and slightly behind them. Jerking her head up at the sound, Ann saw to her great joy that the cub was now safely perched on a ledge of his own, and dismay that Mufasa was involuntarily reproducing what had just happened to Jack as wildebeest collided with him.

Both of them could only watch powerlessly, Ann simultaneously praying that the lion king would reappear and encouraging Jack as he weakly pushed himself up into a seated position with his arms, breathing pattern gliding back into one of relieving normalcy. Suddenly aware of the blood beginning to dapple his chest, Jack pinched his nostrils shut in a vise grip and titled his head back-just in time to get the perfect view of Mufasa rocketing, so impossibly high, into the African air and smashing down on a craggy stone slope.

As the magnificent, ruggedly beautiful lion king achieved what purchase he could manage with his claws, corded logs of golden muscle forcefully pulling him up and up, Ann wildly dared against hope to believe that Scar's wicked plan would fail and everything would turn out okay. Simba was already climbing up a side gully similar to the one both humans were sitting in, and a gentle push from a now standing Jack prodded her into starting to do the same, hands and feet reaching upward over the talus again and again.

But then Jack ceased moving behind her, softly gasping "Scar, _no_." Half-turning to get a better look, Ann's heart, so soaringly optimistic a moment ago, was viciously yanked down into a pit of powerless, shrieking black despair at the sight of Scar on another ledge right above Mufasa-and by the impact of the realization that Scar possessed even _more_ demonic cunning and cruelty then she'd dared to consider.

Helpless and horrified, quivering and hypnotized, Ann watched with a sickened Jack as Scar imperiously stood over his desperate brother, spread-eagled and clearly begging for help. _He's savoring this,_ Ann thought, fighting back the urge to vomit. _The bastard's actually _relishing_ what he's about to do to his own brother! _

Then, disdainfully, cruelly looking down at last, Scar's forepaws flashed out, black talons digging like treble hooks into his brother's paw flesh. Ann Darrow's mind screamed for her to turn away from what was about to happen, but her body stayed stick-rigid as Mufasa's roar tore the air, almost certainly generated from incredulity at the sudden realization of his brother's betrayal every bit as much from the physical pain.

"Oh my God Scar, _don't, don't, don't, don't do this_…" she found herself pleading in a fervent, futile mantra, lava in her eye corners as Scar's head lowered to Mufasa's like that of a snake descending from a tree-no, one of the tyrannosaurs coming down to eat _her_!-and the smile of Lucifer himself twisted across his face while he spoke.

Somehow, even across the gorge, through the din of the stampeding herd, Ann faintly heard the slow, callous mockery. "_Long…live…the…king_."

Then, in one fluid motion, as if disgusted by the physical contact with his brother, Scar hurled Mufasa away into space, like some wicked sorcerer casting a spell. He free-fell backwards with an odd slowness, as if through molasses or honey, his desperate roar of protest seeming to fill the whole Pridelands as an equally loud "**_Nooooooooo!!!!_"** burst from Ann and Simba's throats as one, denying the raw sight of this wise, good-natured beast-king's plummet to death.

Two instants later, Jack's hand was encompassing her mouth as he fiercely, fearfully spat, "For Christ's sake Ann, dry the heck up!!" Under his hand, her lips opened in shock as her mind wrestled in disbelief with what he was doing. Didn't he _understand_ the full horror and cruelty and shamefulness of what had just happened to their awesome lion friend? Didn't he, a man who she knew had socialist leanings and was quite capable of talking himself blue in the face about the right to free speech and public protest, realize that if there was _anything_ on God's green earth that warranted an outcry, it was the stabbingly agonizing, odious murder that had occurred before their eyes?

Vibrating all over with incredulous, stinging betrayal and fury, Ann thrashed and clawed for a few moments like a wounded cat, sending muffled shouts through the tissues of a desperate Jack's hand, still trying her hardest to tell Scar, Simba, and the whole African plains what she and her horror-sliced heart thought of this supremely wicked, selfishly conniving act.

How could she have stood by while fire was flaring up inside the house? How could she have deluded herself into coming along and not leveling with Mufasa about the dangerous plotting she'd already been more or less certain his brother was conducting? And _how, how_ could her beloved Jack so uncaringly be muffling her attempts to express that raw, undiluted grief and outrage?

But as Ann looked through the steaming tears that blurred her eyes and into the green ones of her boyfriend, shaken and despondent, she understood that in a partial way, he cared very much indeed about the heinous, outrageous deed Scar had just done. It was just that he was more concerned though about what this sudden reversal personally meant for _them_, and a small part of Ann Darrow began to both love and despise him for it. "I feel the exact same way you do about what that treacherous _bastard_ just did," he said chokingly, "but don't go tipping him off to where we are by screaming!"

Casting a wild glance across the gorge as he stood, Jack firmly went on, "I hate like hell to do this, but I'll only uncover your mouth if you promise to hold that urge to lament until we're a nice long distance away from this place. Then I'll be joining you, absolutely," he added, a hot grief darkening those green eyes even as he raised them in another frightened glance to where Scar was haughtily turning away. "Do you promise Ann?"

The sight of Scar turning away and coolly heading over to another entry into the gorge galvanized her with a terrible awareness that his particular hand of cards wasn't completely played out yet by any stretch, and Ann spasmodically nodded under Jack's hand. No, she shouldn't have done that indeed.

Drawing it away, Jack's only response was to sigh before hurtling up the talus-floored side cleft with her alongside. As she scrabbled upward in concert with her love, what sliced into Ann Darrow's heart the worst and made boiling, helpless tears drip from her eyes was the certain awareness that Scar would kill Simba before going after them.

And there wouldn't be a damned thing they or Jack's spear would be able to say about it this time-even if they _weren't _running away just to save their own skins. Running away as cowardly traitors. It felt to Ann as if she was being skinned alive by this awful, oceanic guilt. They'd rescued Simba from the teeth of three hyenas-only to cut and run at his darkest, and last hour.

And she knew too, with such heartbroken conviction, that this was the epitome of immorality-not what _**families**_ were supposed to do to each other!

* * *

Ivory claws gouging into its nape, Nduli clenched his jaws and plunged his spikes of canine teeth deeper into the yearling's bearded throat as she bleated. The mother frantically danced around him and the calf, hooves pounding hollowly as they struck the stone, snorting and thrusting her horned head forward in a half-hearted attempt at distraction. Nduli could've cared less. Nothing was going to make those jaws open if he didn't want them too. As his spotted form strained groundward in a squat, the leverage generated was too much for the weakening yearling to withstand, and she toppled on her side. 

Continuing to clamp down like a vise, Nduli ecstatically reveled in the wonderfully salty taste of blood and the scent of the calf's terror while he waited for the spastic threshing of her legs to cease. Sensing it was a lost cause, and unable to deny the power of the herd instinct any longer, the now bereft cow gave up and bobbed away down the gorge, her hoof beats reverberating in her wake.

The life melted away from those sheep-pupiled eyes, and the leopard tom drew back in satisfaction, grinning with manic glee as he regarded her, then switched to a second yearling that he'd ambushed and laid out in the dust. "Who's the ultimate killer out here?" he gloated to them. "It's me, bitches!"

"Meh, don't be getting too full of yourself Nduli," Shenzi warningly huffed from behind him.

Turning around, the leopard saw her, Banzai and Ed pad out of the dust like wraiths. "I have every reason to," Nduli arrogantly snarled. "Even if we're _both_ going to be on equal footing now in Scar's eyes, that'll never change the fact that I'm still a gorgeous, sleekly lethal leopard-thankfully-and you're all still greedy punkass hyenas."

Snarling, Shenzi said coldly, "If it wasn't for the fact that Scar would be super-pissed off by it, I'd make you _less_ gorgeous by tearing a nice hole in that pel-"

"Oh, do try to avoid squabbling with each other kids," Scar sleekly warned. "At least for now," he added as he came up to them. Noticing the twin wildebeest carcasses, the new lion king groaned in pure exasperation, levelly rebuking, "Nduli, _what _did I tell you about indulging your yen for killing?"

"To refrain from it," the leopard tom responded, laying back his ears and growling defensively.

"And why is that?"

Nduli hissed and then growled again before bitterly forcing out the answer, "Because it depletes the strength I should be saving for using on the humans."

As with most adult cats, receiving criticism was not something that sat very well with Nduli. And although part of the walleyed tom's mind grudgingly admitted that Scar had had a point, he especially hated rebukes that made him feel stupid. _Know-it-all bastard_, he thought.

"That can't be helped now though," Scar said, looking past them down the gorge. "I believe in fact, that very soon Simba will realize-"

A resounding cry of despair and pleading exploded into the hazy air. "_HHEEEEELLLLLLPPPPPPPPP! Somebody! Anybody!_"

Hearing it, Nduli and the hyenas pricked up their ears, and Scar coolly droned, "That's my cue," before vanishing into the dusky dust.

As all four waited, Banzai asked Nduli, "So, why _did_ you go and kill _two_ yearlings?"

"I killed two because I heard you babbling about how starved you were, and I want to have the choicest part of at least _one_ still waiting for me when I'm done with the humans, since I know that you'll swipe it."

"Choicest part? Huh?" Banzai whispered in puzzlement.

"The liver. Yeah, I'm going to feast like a royal employee should and eat nothing but liver tonight," the leopard tom grinned, salivating in anticipation. "Human first, then wildebeest second. All I need is a good helping of beans and a bottle of wine."

"Um, oookay," Banzai warily muttered. "Whatever those things are."

As the two had been whispering back and forth, Shenzi had been standing in front with ears erect, attentively listening to the dialogue between Simba and Scar. Abruptly, she said, "And speaking of feast, it's time for Scar to send us after our appetizer."

"Good eating," Nduli wished the trio as they stalked away. Turning, the walleyed leopard gnawed and plucked at the belly of the nearest yearling, swiftly slicing through the stomach muscles until he reached the viscera. At that moment, he began to rub and shove his blunt bolt-cutter muzzle into and around the exposed flesh.

Rotated backwards, his ears picked up Scar's summoning cough. Still, Nduli lingered for a few more seconds to drag his mouth and lips through the yearling's blood before breaking away. This was a gory sort of impromptu war paint in a way. He wanted not just to torture the humans, but also to terrorize the shit out of them as well for a bit.

Moving in the silent, noiseless canter of a leopard that is both hurried, yet wants to remain unseen, Nduli covered the distance to Scar's side within seconds under the masking dust. Mouth slightly parted in a grisly grin, Nduli looked at Scar's glinting emerald eyes in delighted expectation.

"Put them down," the new king mechanically commanded.

Many people mistakenly consider the feline sense of smell to be rather lackluster. But Nduli had no difficulty in striking the panicked scent of both humans within only a few seconds, chasing it to the stone outcrop. And then, clearing it with one easy, fluid bound, the hulking walleyed tom was silently springing up the side cleft that opened out into the vast northern plains where two fugitives ran.

* * *

As you may've guessed, Scar's parting words mean "It's to die for," in Swahili, or at least as best as I could figure out with the help of an online dictionary. I've almost certainly badly erred anyway, but oh well. Chaka Chui means "shining sun leopard," in Swahili. 

Speaking of which, next chapter is titled: **Leopard Kill! **

And just for fun, here's one of the quotes I'm putting before it to whet your appetite; "...Eye to eye and head to head/ (Keep the measure Nag)/ This shall end when one is dead/ (At thy pleasure, Nag)..."

Anyone know where _that's_ from?

It is true by the way, that a good punch between the eyes is one of the methods farmers use to punish cattle and horses that behave badly. When I was younger, I actually saw my dad-who gets along _extremely_ well with animals as a general rule and likes them almost as much as me-do this to a horse at an animal park after it'd walked up behind my sister and delibrately bitten her for no reason at all. Interestingly, some of the other animals there gave the horse a look like they disapproved of his faux pas too.


	26. Leopard Kill

Well, after all that time and five chapters, here we are at the intense and yes, fairly gruesome finish fight between our favorite playwright and the psycho leopard whose name means assassin. I must be frank here and admit that this particular scene was at least partially inspired by the battle between Tarzan and the leopard Sabor and definitely Kong's jaw-dropping battle with the Vastatosaurus Rex trio. In **The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island**, which showcases all the gorgeously conceived and illustrated beasts WETA's artists designed to populate the island-many of which, disappointingly, never made it into the film or can only be seen in the Deluxe Extended Edition-we readers are informed that like lions and hyenas, wolves and coyotes, the V. Rexes and Megaprimatus are and always have been ancient enemies.

The same very much goes for humans and leopards, and if I learned anything at _all_ from the research I did for this chapter, it's that a chunk of ground containing a man-eating-or Lord forbid, wounded-leopard basically qualifies as a five-alarm, send-in-a-UN peacekeeping force, federally recognized disaster/conflict area. Anyhow, I thought it would be quite fitting to have Jack replicate that astonishing battle to save Ann on a smaller scale with this spotted feline. I must caution however, there is some strong profanity and heavy gore in here. Also, even though I've been making references to them for like eight chapters, I just wanted to let everyone know the name I've had Jack coin for the raptors in the gorge, Aquliasuchus, means "eagle crocodile" in Latin and then Greek-their technical moniker is Venatosaurus or hunter lizard as Duke Devlin impressively knows, but there's not much chance that Jack Driscoll could've known that. Plus, it sounds cooler and I've always had a deep fondness for crocs and gators.

I _can't_ say it enough times, thanks so much to all my readers and definitely reviewers!

* * *

"Sheetah, the leopard, alone of all the jungle folk, tortured his prey. The ethics of all the others meted a quick and merciful death to their victims." Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1912. 

"Eye to eye and head to head/(Keep the measure Nag,")/ This shall end when one is dead/(At thy pleasure, Nag./) _Rikki-Tikki-Tavi_, The Jungle Book, 1894, Rudyard Kipling.

"Ole bull he comes for me, wi's head down. But I didn't flinch…I went fo 'e. 'Twas him as did th' flinchin'." Lark Rise, 1939, Flora Thompson.

Arms and legs churning, Jack Goralski Driscoll ran. With an anguished Ann at his right, his feet gulped down yards of soil the way they had after he'd miraculously climbed out from the carrion-stinking ravine of horrors and plunged alone into the jungle, his wild burst of speed being used every bit as much to _flee_ from the place as to catch up with the monster ape.

This time however, he had no clue whatsoever which direction their legs should be taking them-except to just keep running to the east, where civilization most likely lay, away from the setting sun and yet _another_ brush with death that had played out between two walls of stone. He should've refused to even go a step further and hurried Ann straight back to Pride Rock when Scar had told them en route exactly where they were headed.

_That's it,_ Jack savagely promised himself. _No more even __looking__ at gorges. Ever. Everybody get out of the building, because this ain't the first time it's gone up in flames fellas. I'm never having anything else to do with a big crack in the ground again or ignoring my instincts as long as I live-however short a time that may be._

He was incredulous that Fate could be so callous as to put him through a second nightmare stampede. It was very like having to endure losing your home and possessions in a fire, clawing your way back up from rock bottom after the feelings of shock and helplessness had subsided, fiercely scraping together whatever money and help happened to come your way so that you could finally put another roof over your head-and then seeing that one too, crowned with flames one day.

The stalks of the red oat grass seemed to have an equally firey, bloody hue in the rays of the dying sun. Despite his panic, the writer in Jack wasn't blind by any means to the metaphor being showcased. The sun was bloodily setting on a noble king's life and reign, and a time of security and peace for him and Ann. The dream he'd dared to relish and relax in, an Arcadian day after Skull Island's barely understandable horrors had now shown itself to be just a cruel illusion. He'd thought he and his Venus could rightly, finally, call themselves _safe_, and now everything had been so savagely shattered.

Oh Holy Mackerel, how it had been shattered! Although the possibility of a royal coup in the making had drifted in and out of the writer's subconscious ever since Ann had voiced her worry about it last night at the waterhole, Jack had never really felt convinced that Scar was capable of doing such a thing-much less committing the same sort of sickening treachery that Cain dealt out to Abel. Or had he simply been practicing a dangerous, fervent breed of self-denial, not even daring-or frankly _wanting-_to consider that such a thing might be true?

But Scar had just heartlessly proven that it was all too true. And Jack was terrifyingly aware that now he and his dame, having not perished under the hooves of the wildebeest as presumably hoped for, were rather significant dangling loose ends.

Ann herself was utterly grief-stricken, tears streaming from her clenched cobalt blue eyes and constantly looking back over her gracile shoulder, gasping half-sobs pistoning and bursting out of her lungs even as she ran. It felt like getting lemon juice in a knife cut for him, seeing his Venus in such a state of distress. Worst of all though, was whenever she would halt for a second or two, and turn completely around to tearfully face back towards the gorge, smooth jaw rigid and body trembling with a tension generated by the desire to _quit_ racing for the tall timber and go back to protect Simba from his regicidal uncle.

Each time, as much as it destroyed the playwright inside to do it, he forcefully tugged Ann's wrist or purposefully shoved at her shoulder to hurry her along. They literally didn't have the _time_ to cry right now, and now had to look after themselves, get away far and fast while they still could. Running out on Simba like this, especially after they'd fought tooth and nail yesterday to spare him from hyenas, and now leaving him to be killed was something that made Jack Driscoll feel profoundly sick and furious at himself. But you couldn't realistically defeat a male lion that was hellbent on killing you and your angel either! He yearned to somehow be able to have that Thompson in hand again.

The faint possibility that the black-maned lion _might_ allow the two of them to leave as they'd come, content with being so easily rid of the nomadic human pair, did cross a grasping, hopeful part of Jack's mind. But somehow he was all but certain that Scar was the type who preferred the bloodier alternative, as certain as he was that the stars would come out within an hour's time.

Very soon, the front half of this handmade spear would probably have to become well painted with even more blood if he and Ann wanted to hang on to theirs-although he'd taken care not to jab it in much more than skin deep, the tip of the makeshift spear in his left hand was now abundantly smeared with the blood of the many wildebeest he'd frenziedly goaded away. His body was becoming sore and swollen already from the massive bruises sustained during the collisions down in the chasm.

Somewhere from deep in that limitless cloud of beige dust behind and to the left of Jack, a voice abruptly cried out into the still, twilight air. "**HHHHHEEEEELLLLLPPP!!!!**" Simba yelled out pleadingly. "_Somebody!!!_ _Anybody!!!_"

It was a protest, an entreaty that resounded with the deepest, most awful kind of incomprehension, sheer despair, agony, futility, desperation and scalding terror. It was the outburst of someone who has, in a searing, eyeball-piercing moment of enlightenment, has suddenly understood just how indifferent, empty, and pitiless the universe can truly be, impassively going and setting off a case of dynamite alongside your heart and soul. It was the outcry of a sentient being's innocent soul as it was split in two.

And it broke Ann Darrow completely.

With a wail of blistering agony, her legs gave out beneath her, and she collapsed hard on her knees in the grass, halfheartedly catching herself with her palms. In one stride, Jack was beside, then kneeling down to his suffering angel, dropping the spear and enveloping her tightly in his arms. He didn't know exactly whether it was merely her dead weight or the gutting agony bludgeoning his own soul that caused his legs to crumple with barely a struggle. The searing image of a devastated Jimmy flashed across his memory, combining with the slicing pain of Simba's horrified lament to make a glowing coal somehow fill his throat.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry this had to happen Ann," he whispered. "Jesus, I'm so sorry."

Through ripping sobs, Ann's only response, muffled against his shoulder, was "Why?" _Why did this disaster have to happen? Why did Scar have to do this? Why couldn't we have been left in peace? Why did you fall for it? Why did I go along? Why did we leave Simba like cowards? _

A faint tightness lacing his voice, Jack could only say, "I don't know. I just know that you were right, and I was absolutely wrong."

"He's _killed_ Simba just now Jack, I know it. Oh God, he's killed Simba!" Ann screeched in despair. "Why didn't we stay instead of leaving him? Why?" It was every bit as much an indictment as it was a question.

In his peripheral vision, the playwright detected small, banded orange-beige shapes in close-cropped fur scuttling among the herbs and sparse grass from the east, toward him and his mournful dame. Jerking his head up, it was a huge relief for Jack to see that they were on the smaller side, and even more reassuring to see that they were merely meerkats, drawn in by the sound of Ann's heartfelt sobbing. Gathering in a loose group, they frowned and cocked their slim lemur heads in perplexity, noses twitching but saying nothing.

But if Ann's lamenting was acting as a beacon for a meerkat mob, then it was giving them away to a far more malicious beast too. Trying to be both as firm and understanding as he could manage, even while his nerves vibrated with fear, Jack Driscoll advised her, "Ann, come on. If Scar has done away with Simba, then there's nothing more we can do for him. I'll dish out and have a nice big serving of humble pie when we're out of harm's way, but until then we've got to keep moving," he urged as he took up the spear and leapt to his feet.

Ann hesitantly stood erect, and gave one last helpless look back at the gorge, her expression that which a sister gives a little brother whom she is unable to save. "Come on!!" Jack hissed, stress dancing in his voice.

"Hey msichana, is there something wrong?" one meerkat gently asked. Jack didn't bother to tell her that yes, something was _horribly_ wrong indeed.

Even as the tears began to subside and a regretful, defeated determination began to bloom in those immense blue eyes, Ann weakly responded, "But Jack, don't you understand-"

"I understand that I don't want to be anywhere around when Scar comes over to do cleanup," Jack pointedly gabbled back as he made his limbs churn once more, several of the meerkats scattering before them. Other members of the group were gathered at their burrow, peaceably soaking in the remaining sun or calmly digging close by as the harried playwright and actress passed them in their flight. He couldn't help but momentarily envy their security.

Suddenly at that instant, just like how the muscle-gripping tension of a derelict building's impending destruction is jarringly broken by the roar of the explosive charges detonating, the gruff, earnest _murruck-murruck_ of an alarmed meerkat sentry burst into the air like a firecracker. "Everybody _haul butt!_" the sentry added, even as he dropped to the ground from the hunk of old antelope bone he'd been using as a stepping stool, and promptly rushed off. In a flash, terrified meerkats were racing on all fours from every direction to dive into the burrow entrance, sliding and writhing over and against each other like spawning fish in their haste.

_Oh Jesus Christ!!_ Jack sinkingly thought, his memory flashing back to how the scorpion/ lobster/ pill millipede creatures in the swamp had abruptly scattered and fled seconds before the terrible viperfish-sea lion behemoth had attacked their raft from behind. The breeze, which had been blowing from the east and therefore into their faces, now shifted and came up from the south.

Suddenly, Jack smelt feline in that instant, mingled with the sharp, iron-filing scent of freshly shed blood. And then he knew.

As if he was a tethered dog reaching the end of its rope, Jack stopped immediately in mid-stride and held up a hand to halt Ann before drawing himself bolt upright. The evening air seemed to become more viscous and enclosing somehow as he raked the ground around them with his eyes, piercing every islet of scrub or herbs, delving into each cowlick of long grass.

"What's wrong now?" Ann asked in querulous uncertainty, her own expressive eyes flicking and sweeping back and forth as she seemed to shrink inward, picking up on her partner's fear.

Somehow barely succeeding in mastering the awful cold stone of fear in his gut, Jack Driscoll's sweating hands clenched the spear in an iron grip while he breathed in and smoothly said, "Ann, just walk away with me as calmly as you can. Do _not_ panic or run unless I think we've snaked far enough away from _him_." There was a sort of dumpy mound nearby, and he wondered if they should use that as a kind of fortress…

From somewhere to the playwright's left came a raspy grunt, faint at first, but becoming steadily louder. _Ha-um, ha-um, ha-um, ha-um. _Jack immediately seized Ann's right hand in his free one and began to run south, consumed by terror-when the wood-rasping sounds came again, their maker concealed in the grass and herbs before them. _Ha-um, ha-um, ha-um, ha-um. _Dodging sharply, Jack hurried Ann to the southeast, heading for the mound-only to be blocked and turned another time by the sawing calls.

It was then that Jack Driscoll remembered and realized. No lion born could ever produce these coarse rasping grunts or hide in this paltry cover-but a leopard could and was. This leopard too, was acting as Scar's hitman, eliminating the final two witnesses without the lion having to get his own paws dirty. But first, this fella wanted to play a sick little game of hide-and-seek before taking care of business. _Who's there? __I'm__ here! Ready or not, here I come!_

For a few helpless seconds of despair, even as he ran in belly-clenching fear, the writer closed his eyes. He had the fleeting sensation that this was actually all just some crackers delusion, that when he opened his peepers again he'd be back in his Manhattan apartment, perched on the sofa while working on the newest crossword puzzle in the _Times _after a shower and shave, a safe, adoring Ann casually resting in the crook of his elbow.

He hopefully opened them again. Nope. Nada. Still running hither and thither from a leopard that clearly delighted in their terror. The husky voice sawed air a fourth time, now just two yards from his right flank. As he began to turn, grass rustled, and before Jack could even process the idea of thrusting with the spear, the forequarters of an amber and ebony form darted out at him.

A velvet paw almost indifferently batted, cloth tore, and there were four elongated sparks of pain over Jack's ribs. Although the wounds were little more than skin deep, they felt like being swiped with lit matches. At the pain, Jack stumbled, a quick, sharp cry bursting from his lips.

Before he could stand erect again, Ann picked up a stone, ran forward, and chucked it at the leopard's form as it diffused back into the grass, fiercely yelling, "You get away from him!" But her projectile failed to hit their tormentor, already gone from view. For a split second, Jack fancied he saw a choppy, yet stealthy motion of limbs from the corner of his eye in the murdered daylight. Where was he-she now, for God's sake?

He wasn't even able to do much more than look over his shoulder before the leopard lunged from behind and swiped its claws almost delicately across the small of the writer's back. It was as if four syringes of sulfuric acid had been squirted across his skin-except Jack knew quite well that it was a whole different type of fluid that wetted his hand when he instinctively shoved it against the wound in response to the flashing pain.

The pain-fire was replaced in the next moment then by a welling, overpowering anger. Something just snapped inside him slightly. The fear, the nightmare incidents, the struggling to keep from getting killed by creatures and humans who had no place in what he thought of as the world and reality, the constant chasing and attacks by over-aggressive beasts hungering for his flesh and/or trying to harm Ann-it was so Christ-damned tiresome!!!! He'd finally had _enough, _all he could take of this utter horseshit!!

"All right!" Jack roared in fury. "_I don't know who you are, you cowardly son of a bitch, but if you've been sent to kill us, then be frank about it and **face me like a man**!!!"_

From a thick patch of giant star grass in the reddening light, the throaty sawing welled up again in response, its tone now one of smug amusement. "Actually _Jack_, I'm a leopard, not a man," the feline voice said arrogantly. "And my actual name is Nduli, if you please. But I suppose I might as well concede to your suggestion-now that those jahanum-damned meerkats _had_ to go and fuck up my element of surprise," he growled in irritation. Then, confidently, unhurriedly, the spotted cat virtually materialized, then _oozed_ out of the grass and stood erect before both humans, ears laid back and muscles tensed for battle.

Jack heard grass rustle behind him and pebbles shift as Ann gasped and drew back several steps upon seeing Nduli fully expose his body, mantled in that perversely beautiful spotted cloak. The playwright didn't blame her. Somehow, the consuming anger drained away, and confidence didn't linger all that far behind either.

As blood seeped from his scratches, the sight of the leopard hitman made a nauseous, helpless sensation blossom in the pit of Jack's lean stomach. The fur around his jaws and glinting black lips was horribly sodden with blood, and the writer wondered numbly if this leopard, not Scar, had been the one to murder poor Simba.

Even though Jack judged Nduli to probably weigh around 140 pounds, or namely 1/158 of the monstrous ape titan-hell, the cat weighed less than even he did-his eyes were all too drawn to the massive shoulder, neck, and jaw muscles that rippled and bulged underneath that spangled velvet coat. On top of that, this was definitely a trophy quality tom, and he didn't think that even the late Benjamin Hayes would've realistically been a match for the cat, not with just a wooden spear and bare hands as weapons.

And Jack Driscoll knew with a sickening certainty that he'd probably be joining the first mate in oblivion soon enough.

Perhaps most disturbing of all, as Nduli began to circle in a slinking half-crouch, warily testing for an opening, was that malevolent, gruesome demon grin-blood even coated the _inside_ of the ridged mouth!-and his glaring, abnormally yellow right eye. It made his gaze too much of a cousin to the eyes of the natives, crazed and cruel all at once.

Never ungluing his own green ones from the walleyed tom, a slight choke infused Jack's droning voice as he told the slim angel standing behind him, frightened yet determined, "Run away Ann. Run right now." The message was clear. _Get out of here fast, not just so that you survive, but because I _know_ that I'm going to lose this fight, and I can't stand the idea of you witnessing it._

"Like hell I will Jack!" she resolutely snapped back. Frustrated, yet grudgingly pleased by her loyalty, Jack made two infernally foolish mistakes at once. He turned just a few degrees toward Ann-and his eyes were then abruptly dazzled by the setting sun. But worst of all, he took his eyes off Nduli.

By the time his mortal sin registered, there was the sound of padded paws hitting earth-and then claws were raking the small of Jack's back once more, just above the buttocks. Automatically, like a bucking horse, Jack tried to plant a heel hard in Nduli's jaw in response. It only struck air though, and there was another knife slash down his calf, parallel to the shinbone.

He managed to turn, only to receive a red rake across the bottom of his chest from one of Nduli's inward-turned paws, seemingly broad as a saucer. Cringing in pain, Jack wildly tried to stab Nduli with the spear at that moment. But the walleyed tom dodged it with little effort and slashed him again across the ribs.

Unlike most large predators, such as grizzly bears or alligators, a leopard in the heat of battle rarely tries to close with its adversary and clamp down with its fangs. Instead, it uses speed and its claws to deliver lightening-swift wounds. They quite literally "strike like a ninja, cut like a razor blade."

Nduli moved so fast and with such agility that as far as the desperate writer was concerned, it made him look as quick on his two feet as a robot dipped in epoxy. Club against cutlass. As for the huge tom leopard, he might as well have been made of molten steel. His claws were certainly causing as much pain.

Jack tried his best to score a hit with that ridiculous pointed stick, but it was more or less like attempting to spear a fall leaf blowing in the wind. The only surefire way to anchor a leopard that's facing you head-on is with a direct swat to the chest or the head. And considering that the chest of even a big tom is only about as wide as a man's splayed hands touching together, even if the cat is being especially obliging and simply walking or jogging along, it's still a challenging enough target for a person armed with a high-powered rifle to hit-to say nothing of when one is right in your face, shredding you with all the glee and swiftness of an under-the-gun coroner, and you have only a pig-sticker to answer back with. Much of the time, simply holding his weapon crosswise and trying to block the claws was the only thing that Jack could do.

Everything seemed a mass of windmilling, clawing, slapping limbs, some muscular and spotted, some long and tanned, blood, dirt, grass, lashing tail, and excruciating pain. Ann's frail arms and figure showed now and again as she stoned the leopard, kicked at those stocky velvet hind legs, or fiercely yet ludicrously clutched his endless rosette-dappled rope of a tail and tried to pull the cat off her fella.

The most her attempts did was either cause Nduli to snort in contemptuous amusement or grunt in mild irritation as he almost gently kicked her feet out from under her with his powerful hind legs, claws usually sheathed. In addition, the fight took both combatants in all kinds of unpredictable directions. Sometimes Jack found himself wildly gyrating on his feet as he did what he could to fend off his attacker with kicks and slugs, other times rolling and thrashing on the ground like a landed eel. The sinking sun randomly flashed and dazzled, flashed and dazzled again as they dodged and gyrated.

A small pit of Jack realized at some point through his desperate struggling that the walleyed tom wasn't putting his whole heart into this. He was pulling his punches so to speak. Then, with horrified, searing comprehension, the dreadful truth exploded into his panicked mind. The leopard wanted to play with this play-builder before killing him, to have a good time torturing and dealing out pain.

Often Nduli would prove it by allowing Jack to get back to his feet and even allow him, dripping blood, to run a short distance-only to bore in once more and slap a forepaw against his flesh to leave even more scarlet lines of suffering, or sometimes even deliver the odd bite for good measure with those creamy thorns of fangs. Red-hot barbed wire across the left lower flank. A handful of scalpels dragged across the back and top of the right shoulder blade. Top of the left upper arm flossing a shark's front rows of teeth. A quartet of arrowheads hammered all together into the left buttock. Razor wire administered from below the right armpit to slightly west of his right nipple. Railroad spikes in the left thigh. Pike hooks embedded in, then ripped out of, the right buttock. Cat o' nine tails twice across the back in swift succession.

Nduli smugly paused to taunt him, standing still for a moment and mocking, "Come on you fucking pansy! Run me through with your pathetic-ass pointed stick!" Furious, Jack tried to reciprocate, but the thickset cat avoided his weapon with the speed and agility of a lizard, flashed to the side, and bounced up to bite the writer through the ribs.

Jack screamed as he heard his own bones crunch under the cat's teeth in white-hot bursts of agony. Nduli's weight threw him to the grass once more. Even as yet more blood streamed from the penny-sized holes, the playwright swung his fist at the walleyed tom's head as hard as he could.

In spite of his lithe, gangly appearance, Jack Driscoll had certainly never been a weakling. Although a doctor by trade and very much the intellectual himself, Jason Driscoll was also a big believer in the ideal of the Renaissance man, and had therefore worked zealously to install this perfect combination of impressive smarts and strength into his sons. Jack had carried this mindset through high school and into the doors of Columbia University, where he'd somehow found the time to take part in the Columbia Lions wrestling, swimming, and cross-country running teams-and doing a swell job of it, thank you very much.

The long-fingered fist proved that strength as it detonated against the side of the leopard's head, causing Nduli to grunt and draw back in surprise. Then the cat gave a snarl of anger, a horrid, deep, tearing gravelly sound, and his own paw connected with Jack's jaw. No claws this time, just a blow so hard that it made the shocked writer see stars for a few seconds as his head snapped to the side and teeth jumped in their sockets from the whiplash.

Blue eyes glaring like those of a tawny eagle, Ann's thin ivory shape rose over the leopard's broad coal daubed back. Teeth straining pebbles of marble, she brought a stone down hard on the cat's hipbone. The stone and the blow driven by her slender arm weren't forceful enough to actually do real damage, but it still did hurt the cat, and an enraged Nduli began to whip around, that trouser-wetting snarl bursting out of his thick throat as he turned on her.

Desperately, even as blood streamed from his body and reddened his torn clothing, Jack fearlessly sprung to his feet and lunged forward, crashing onto Nduli's back and wrapping his right arm around the leopard's linebacker neck. As if it was a steel bar, Jack Driscoll pressed his upper arm against the side of the leopard's throat and bore down.

The triangle choke, Coach Iacocca had called it so long ago. By clamping your opponent's neck between your upper arm and chest, you squeezed the carotid artery shut and partially compressed the windpipe, preventing oxygen from reaching the brain. It worked wonderfully as a wrestling tactic, and you could seriously weaken or even kill someone with this choke.

That was assuming you executed it correctly. That was assuming your aggressor was human.

Jack didn't. Nduli wasn't.

Leopards are amazingly powerful cats, perhaps the strongest of all felines pound for pound. They are able to overpower and kill 10-foot crocodiles, 14-foot pythons, Cape buffalo and giraffe calves, kudu, lechwe, bushpigs, and even chimpanzees. For a leopard, slaying an animal twice its weight-and then lifting it 12 feet or more up into a tree as a finale-is really no great trial.

Arching his colorful back, Nduli dragged his legs underneath his body and forced himself upward in an arching leap like a rodeo horse, seemingly putting almost as much power into it. As Jack sensed the leopard's muscles beginning to coil underneath, the writer knew what was about to happen, and surged down with his knees in response.

He hung on for dear life as long as he could, hoping against hope that he could somehow manage to choke Nduli into an oxygen deprived stupor and then retrieve the spear to finish him off, similar to what Carl Akeley had done with a knife and a wounded leopardess that had gone for him, except he'd even more audaciously stuck his arm right down her gullet to choke her. But even more importantly, Akeley had had her pinned on her back in soft sand, with his knees in her gut and elbows in her armpits. It didn't work that way with a record-book tom leopard lying prone on grass and gravel.

The writhing, scratching, walleyed cat convulsively bucked, bucked, bucked again. Jack's arm loosened at the second plunging kick, and the third sent him flying backward to land sprawling painfully on a torn back and butt as if he'd taken a whack from a pack mule. It probably would've even done the horned dinosaur that had thrown him in the jungle quite proud. Flattened ears lending a bizarre rounded look to his head, Nduli leapt clear and ran a few feet before whipping around with another horrid, tearing snarl as the playwright wildly rowed backward with his legs, trying to get the space needed to prepare some sort of defense before the leopard tom went for him once more.

"Stop! Leave him alone!" a feminine voice rang out. Ann's pale body darted in sideways between the cat and the man, and to Jack's mutual amazement and terror, fearlessly started to slap and kick Nduli in the head with all the strength her petite form could muster.

"_Ann no_!!" Jack wildly yelled. "_He'll __**kill you**_!!"

And indeed, Nduli struck out with a forepaw, furiously snarling "Don't you interfere bitch!!" The blow knocked his Venus to the ground, and the writer saw a stain of red expand into her slip halfway down the left side of her ribcage in the failing light as she gave a piercing scream.

A dark, volcanic rage swallowed Jack Driscoll like magma, and he sprung back to his feet, blood trickling and jaw set as three pounding strides carried him to the hateful beast that had _dared_ to harm and draw blood from his angel! Thanks to the mad yellow coat of paint over his cornea, the walleyed tom was effectively blind on his right side. Then too, his attention was focused, however briefly, on Ann as her slender hands grasped at the bleeding trio of slashes over her ribs.

So Jack was able to take him just a little off guard, hate and adrenaline propelling a right hook into the side of the cat's head, and a knee into that bearded, red-stained white jaw immediately after. Nduli gave a tearing screech of shock, and although clearly impressed, retaliated with a blow across the writer's chest.

Whacked with a two-by-four studded with nails. Yet even as Jack Driscoll gaspingly cried out and did what he could to wrestle away the agony, some hopeful, dryly scientific part of him realized that the leopard's slash had been administered almost halfheartedly, and this time not because the cat was deliberately pulling his punches. Could the choke have actually _weakened_ Nduli, even just a little?

Managing not to concentrate on the ivory spikes of teeth bared within 14 inches of his face, Jack brought up his right knee and booted the leopard's back legs out from under him. The walleyed tom fell backward and onto his left side. Usually, a cat in this position would be back on its feet and back on the attack in the blink of an eye.

But thanks to the triangle choke treatment, Nduli was just a little bit slower to rise this time than usual. One of the leopard's hind feet windmilled through twilight air as he used his forepaws and hulking shoulders to turn himself halfway over, while the other scrabbled clumsily in the sandy gravel. At that moment, Jack saw a risky, but golden opportunity to perhaps actually turn the outcome of this fight around. With all the weight of his body above it, he stomped on the half-erect tom's elongated foot. He stomped it as savagely as Kong had stomped one of the reeking bat-wolves.

Small bones smashed and crunched under the playwright's foot like peanut brittle under a soldier's boot as the leopard huskily screeched in shock and agony. _Now_ the walleyed tom was angered, and Jack Driscoll instantly wheeled, taking flight across the grass. The spear had been flung aside by accident somewhere in the melee, perhaps dropped in response to the pain from one of many arm wounds, but the writer still remembered where it was, and his slashed legs churned in a frantic attempt to reach it.

He knew that although the leopard tom had had some of his advantage taken away with a crushed foot, this time the wounded Nduli's attack wouldn't "merely" be to torture, but to kill. Gloves off. He could hear the leopard's uneven footfalls rapidly closing in on him from behind as the cat made three-legged haste to punish his human foe for laming him. At least with the leopard so utterly focused on making him pay the price, he couldn't hurt Ann any further. Jack reached down and plucked the spear from the grass.

Not too far away, there was a large pyramidal mound rising above the seed heads. It wasn't a termite colony, but instead was a weathered, crumbling outcrop of red sandstone about 10 feet high. A tor, as the Scots called it. If only he could keep ahead and alive long enough to attain the tor, he'd have the all-important high ground or at least be able to keep his back protected!

Somehow, Jack found his broad hands, one half-clutching the spear, shooting out to strike the crumbled stone. A steak knife grated against his crunched ribs, and lava poured into the many wounds streaking his body, but sheer will, adrenaline, and panic compelled him to scrabble upward.

"Jack, behind you!!" Ann shrieked. Head flashing over his shoulder, Jack, now more than halfway up the tor, turned to see Nduli climbing after him. The sight momentarily stupefied the writer with terror, for the infuriated leopard looked for the entire world like a terrible, vengeful demon coming at some poor sinner's soul. Embracing the rock with his massive forelegs, head weirdly rounded by the flattened ears, insane yellow eye burning with anger, the walleyed tom half-clawed, half-lunged in pursuit, corrugated coral palate neatly framed by bared white teeth as a solitary hind leg hurled him up and forward in great jerking motions.

Jack wasn't fully prepared to put the spear through that narrow spangled chest. He made a clumsy jab, but only dug out a strip of amber and pitch hide as hooked claws gouged into his calf and pulled him to their snarling owner like boxers in a clinch. Face down, Jack cried out as new pain was applied to the sides of his chest, and he wildly kicked up and out, sending both him and the crippled leopard tumbling end over end to the bottom as pounding in their direction, Ann despairingly screamed in horror, "No, _no, nnnoooooo_!!"

Like in baseball games of his youth, Jack found himself sliding through blossoming dirt and dust. The momentum of the sliding impact carried both him and the leopard riding his back several feet away from the tor and spun them around so that they were facing back into the dying sun. They both passed between two jagged, 3-foot spikes of rock protruding out from the plain, and to Jack's powerless horror, his spear struck one of them and was ripped out from his clutching hand to whirl away into the long grass. So close and yet so far!

The pressure of Nduli's heated plush body on his torso and legs was released, and Jack frantically raised his chest off the dirt, an arm reaching out to grab it, hoping against hope that he would somehow succeed. Fresh pain hooked into his upper arms, and he felt something wet and slippery, reeking of decayed meat, begin to encompass the nape of his neck, whiskers perversely ticklish against the sienna skin. "I don't think so, asshole," Nduli snarled in his ear, body now half crouched across his upper back and shoulders.

Jack understood then in that second that just like a domestic cat with a mouse or finch, the hulking tom was about to break his neck with those metal-punch fangs. As they began to pierce the skin and draw more blood, probing for a gap between the cervical vertebrae, the only thought that broke past the writer's terminal panic was abyssal, helpless grief about how he'd broken his promise and failed his angel.

All of a sudden, there was the beauitful sound of something hard forcefully smacking into feline flesh and bone, and then a startled grunt from the leopard as the mounting, grinding pressure on Jack's nape stopped. The writer felt a baseball-sized rock lightly drop onto, then tumble off his grated shoulder.

Then, from somewhere above his scalp, Nduli snarled, "Don't _even_ try it bitch!" Daring to shift his eyes, Jack was immensely heartened, yet rather taken aback to see Ann, eyes narrowed, still racing right for the two of them, her sole intent to snatch up that spear-and use it. The walleyed tom had figured it out as well, and meant to prevent her from taking the weapon in hand any way he could.

The slandering words sparked off a barely concealed rage within Jack, one that made his eyes blaze like gaslights. But he needed to keep it in check, especially since a crazy, hopeful chance for victory was currently sprouting in his resourceful brain. So instead of immediately acting out in response to the leopard's cruel mockery, he allowed it to further fuel a growing fire.

If Nduli hadn't been so preoccupied with neutralizing this new danger, hadn't falsely assumed that the slashed playwright no longer had enough blood or fight left in him to really be a threat any longer, and had actually stopped to think, he almost certainly would've paid the insurance by completing that fatal bite to Driscoll's nape or crunching into the back of his skull. Classic method of whacking primate prey pals. Except for some brief token resistance, there would've been nothing the writer could've done to save himself. Perhaps the cleverest of all large cats, leopards rarely make such rash oversights. But this time, Nduli did.

In the purplish light, Jack saw the big cat's front paws strike the ground several inches in front of him, then felt a backward, raking pain before the hind feet, one rigid and erect, one at an awful angle, touched down at the same spot. Like a furry snake, Nduli's tail finally bisected the playwright's vision.

Lunging up from the dirt, his hands closing around it, Jack simultaneously gathered his body into a rearing squat as he swung the leopard by his own tail. Nduli gave a roaring snarl of startled indignation and half-flashed around, porcelain-white claws eagerly hooking for Jack's angular face.

But the writer had anticipated this. Staying balanced on one foot, he kicked Nduli as hard as he could with the other-directly where it hurts on a guy.

The walleyed tom yowled at the pain as the mass of his own spotted body was used against him and Jack flung the big cat away to his left, a golden yellow and jet sack torquing through space. And when Jack did allow the ropy furred tail to shoot out from his grasp, Nduli's own momentum, as hoped, sent him crashing down onto the nearer spike of sandstone, impaling him through the pit of the right shoulder.

The walleyed tom screeched in hellish torment, his blood flowing darkly down the stone and soaking the lovely pelt in the mauve light, razor claws wildly, uselessly tearing and scrabbling. The point of the rock had punched right through the top of the corded shoulder, the jagged serrations further helping with keeping the transfixed leopard in place. Exhausted, Jack decided that just like with any poor citizen from Abbot's Flatland who ran into a Soldier by mistake or design, this similar-shaped chunk of rock also guaranteed certain death for Nduli.

His breath came in snatched, red gasps as he met Ann partway. Despite the sweat covering his lithe body and the current air temperature, Jack felt chilled all over, and wondered if he was going into shock from the copious blood loss. She reached out, intending to embrace him, but then to his disappointment drew back. It was little wonder. His shirt and trousers were patched, drizzled, saturated with blood, and he was having trouble standing fully erect.

"Oh God Jack, he sliced you to ribbons!" Ann fretfully wailed as she latched on to one of his hands with both of hers. They were shockingly warm, Jack noted even as his distressed eyes gazed at the scarlet blotch marring her slip.

"He sliced into _you_ Ann! Are you all right for Christ's sake? I can't believe that son of-"

"Forget about _me_ Jack! It's just a shallow flesh wound, and I'll live," she assured him. "But you-he's nearly tortured you to death!" she shot back in mounting agitation, almost seeming to marvel over his wounds as she spoke.

"Yeah, he sure did," he panted, eyes clenching in response to the molten agony that had overtaken his whole body. "Now I know how a caught mouse feels-ah!."

"Do you think you'll pull through?" she wildly urged, lips quivering.

His ribs rasped against each other like red-hot woodscrews, and he could feel his strength literally _streaming_ out of him with his blood. How much had he lost to Nduli's claws? How much more would be lost before the bleeding could be stopped? Jack wanted to admit that things could actually go either way, but so as not to distress his already tearful Venus told her, "I survived Skull Island. I can survive this too," weakly grinning through the scorching pain.

"Says you!" Ann exclaimed, not falling for a bit of it. "Oh my goodness, what can we even do out here?She doubtfully regarded him. "Do you think you can still walk as well as stand Jack? We've _got_ to get to some shelter right away, where you can lie down and I can take care of you so you _will_ survive."

Even the act of drawing breath hurt, and Jack nodded in agreement, shoulders slouching and trembling in pain and welling shock. There was a raspy grunt behind him, and it made him aware that there was still one particular scene that had yet to be completed. "Yeah, I think I probably can as long as we stop the bleeding a little. But first I've got to take that spear to make sure a certain big kitty is good and dead," he dryly panted. "Then take my shirt and use it for bandaging, trouser legs too if you have to," he panted.

Ann willingly handed it to him, vapidly jollying, "Looks like you didn't really need this to lick him after all."

"Not half bad as a shield though," Jack added as, dreadfully weary, he began to turn, expecting to see a fading but still dangerous walleyed leopard pinned on a sandstone spike. But Nduli was no longer there, only blood and some fur remaining.

Jack Driscoll's first reaction was dumbstruck astonishment. No man on earth could be impaled in that fashion and still manage to tear himself free, and then produce almost no sound to boot. The next was pure, animal terror, reaching back to the days when hominids had first developed tools that could harm their most fearful enemy.

It was a very wise instinctive fear to have, for with its intelligence, flawless camouflage, and most of all deeply vindictive nature, a leopard running wounded makes even a professional human assassin look like a fluffy bear cub in comparison. It can come exploding out of the grass from any direction like a spring-loaded, guard-off chainsaw, a whirling citron mass of black rosettes, dagger teeth, and samurai sword claws. And Jack knew, gripping the spear with one hand and pointing it outward while fiercely clutching Ann to him with the other, adrenaline smothering the pain as he jerkily looked around in the dusky blue and pinkish light, that it was going to happen all too shortly.

A wounded Cape buffalo snorts and produces enough ruckus to beat the band as he smashes through the underbrush when beginning a charge. A wounded lion usually can't help expressing its wrath with a snarl or deep grunt the second before it rockets out of the brush. A wounded leopard springs out from a minute tussock of grass as silently, implacably, and destructively as a tornado funnels down from the bottom of a sickly black-green anvil cloud.

Only Ann's expansive cobalt blue orbs of eyes, suddenly dilating even wider at something coming from Jack's right and slightly behind, tipped the writer off. There was no time to scream, only to bodily throw Ann out of his arms and to the side as Nduli came rocketing across the grass from only six yards away and launched his body into the air like a dappled javelin, face twisted in hatred, sickle claws eagerly sticking out of inward-turned paws, wild yellow eye like a small sun.

The force of the impact knocked Jack to the grass like the literal ton of bricks, and Nduli thunderously yowled, "_Okay fucker! You wanted a war! __You just __**got**__ a fucking war!_ " Leaping for the playwright's throat, the murderous leopard almost succeeded in seizing it and crushing the windpipe in those terrible jaws. But Nduli's smashed foot miraculously causing him to miss his mark, and Jack therefore had just enough time to put his forearm up in front of it to block the vicious teeth, holding it up vertically.

Four sets of claws raked and shredded, slicing deeply into flesh, the hind ones working especially hard at trying to carve through the playwright's abdominal muscles and hook out his entrails. Live electrical wire studded with Swiss Army knives. Jack felt a slicing, ungodly horrid species of pain boil up, one that almost seemed to be generated from _inside _his abdomen. _No!_ Somehow, with the crazed power generated by desperation, he booted the walleyed tom's back legs away and spared his guts, for the moment at least.

With his arm held vertically, Nduli's bolt-cutter jaws didn't have anything to crunch down on, the shearing back teeth ineffectually trying to achieve a grip. That translated into no firm purchase on the man he was carving up either, and in one jerking motion, Jack half-kicked, half-shoved the leopard off of him. The unbelievable significance of what he'd just done staggered him as he sat up. He'd thrown a leopard. _Thrown_ a leopard!

But now Nduli was descending on him again, a shredding, dicing, disemboweling mass of razors and railroad spikes. This time, Jack was timely in his defensive response. He aimed for near the bottom of the deceptively slender chest, and let fly. A wooden weapon pierced deep into the flesh of an organic one with a resounding "_PUH-uck"_, and Nduli uttered a penetrating screech as he reared up and savagely clawed at the shaft. From the shade of the cat's blood, Jack was certain that he'd gotten the walleyed tom through the heart and at least one lung.

To his astonished horror however, the writhing leopard arched his back, pushed down-and broke part of the spear clean off with the rest still inside his body!! Nduli's eyes narrowed to slits as he freed himself, and seemed to turn a sort of sickly green with boundless hate. He reared up again for a few moments in a Max Baer posture, and a truly ghastly growling scream, seeming to come from the mouth of a demon instead of a big cat, erupted from the massive tom as he clawed at the jagged section of wood jutting out of his chest. It gurgled through pulmonary blood in his throat and flung a heavy crimson mist into the African air to drizzle over the grass and Jack's face.

Eyes still affixed with Jack's, Nduli came at him again with another demonic snarl of concentrated, brute hatred.

Keeping his legs folded up above his internal organs, Jack frantically chivied the rest of the spear into the leopard with all his diminishing strength, this time getting the cat in the side of the chest as the crazed tom tried to pulverize his left shoulder into bone shrapnel.

This second spear hit made Nduli cut loose with a distinctly weaker, yet still very much infuriated snarl, and the playwright took advantage of his shock to kick him away a second time as best he could. Landing in a heap, the walleyed tom just looked back at Jack Driscoll for several slow-motion seconds, feline gaze seeming to be spiritually burning and stabbing holes through him. The baleful eyes flickered like lights on a theater marquee, and frothy blood was vomited out in a light rain every time the cat defiantly, balefully snarled, each one possessing just a bit less power than the one before it.

It looked like the end of the road for this fella. Then again, all that blood shed by those claws and fangs likely meant it was the end of the road for him too. He was no longer badly bleeding, but hemorrhaging, skin already transformed into that of a corpse. Wasn't it a sad irony though, to escape all those horrid beasts on Skull Island, and ultimately die from injuries sustained by a leopard, Jack reflected. No matter, he'd perfomed a white knight's ultimate duty to his lady.

Then, to Jack's horrified disbelief, even soaked through with his own blood and impaled by two sizable sections of wooden spear, Nduli somehow shudderingly pulled himself up into what counted for a half-erect stance and relentlessly, unstoppably, began to claw his way forward again, back toward the mutilated writer.

"Can't you just quit?_ Good Christ, can't you just please drop dead and go to hell_?!" Jack Driscoll shrieked despairingly.

"Not...before...I send...you there..._first_," the prostrate tom grimly, shakily burbled through his own lung blood.

There were no more weapons at hand, and as the dying Nduli pulled his gory body over Jack's legs like some grim machine of slaughter, blood gushing down his sides and front, Jack feebly tried to shove his head away with his hands. Almost more like a failing power tool continuing to be driven by it's programming rather than by thought, the fading leopard whacked them down and to the side with a thin growl.

Claws slid out from a headlight-sized paw, and Nduli gave a vapid, take-what-I-can-get sort of victory smile, saying chokingly "Guess we're both going down." Jack understood and saw then that the leopard meant to cut his carotoid artery with a dewclaw, kill him that way.

Desperately twisting his head aside and tucking his square lower jaw down into the hollow of his throat at the same moment, he saw Ann's taut arms shoot in to fearlessly grab the nape of the leopard's neck and pull through his blurring vision. An instant later, the cat's eyes, one khaki, one a crocus yellow, opened so impossibly wide, almost seeming innocent and cute as the spotted body gave a final convulsive heave. No longer driven by the brain of a living creature, the paw went wild and smashed into the side of Jack's skull, tearing loose broad ribbons of scalp as it did so, sending a galaxy of silver fireworks to fill his vision.

Time seemed to halt, then swirl, as Jack briefly fought against the inevitable, like a dog being swept downstream into river rapids. He saw Ann's gorgeous blue eyes and enchantingly soft-featured, shell-pale face lowering down to look into his own. He distantly felt the caress of her hands on his chest and cheek. The writer knew that his body had taken too much punishment, and now would give up the ghost. But his angel and nymph would live on, and that was the only thing that truly mattered.

Jack Driscoll gave his tearful angel a weak crooked grin, and then tried to tell her, " Don't be sad. I love you." But he was only able to barely, silently mouth it before his head lolled to the side and a bottomless pit of tar engulfed him.

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This Especially Evil Cliffhanger (TM) has been brought to you by Nate The Ape. 


	27. Mourning In Moonlight

It is with profound regret that I must inform you all of the untimely passing of Jack Goralski Driscoll, aged 32, due to wounds...Oh, come on and cheer up all you fellas and dames!! Remember, Jack still has the final, third, "Back to New York" act of Kong to take part in, and his native reality seems pretty stable, so unless our writer/hero had a doppleganger from another parallel universe, an identical twin who somehow went through the exact same experiences in the movie and was darn good at keeping himself hidden, or was some sort of zombie in amazingly good condition...Man alive, Nduli may be an original character of mine, but I'm not _anywhere_ as cruel and twisted as he is! I promise, this will ultimately be a very humane fanfic, and the goriness of the last chapter wasn't simply for shock value or just to be gratuitous, but will play a suprisingly important role in the Jack/Ann, Ann/Kong relationships as this fic wears on-not to mention that I _always_ strive to keep things real and honest. And for better or worse, some events in nature, the realest world of all, can be extremely sad, shocking, and horrifying.

Still, I'm sorry about disturbing my wonderful readers. :( For what it's worth, you won't see another super-bloody confrontation like this for a very long time in the plot-and when it does occur, our hero and heroine will be in control of the lethal weaponry this time, fighting for truth, justice, and the American way, lol.

This shorter chapter is kind of another experiment in writing, just like in Chapter 9, as well as an exercise in doing effective "character anguish." Hey, our heroine's an emotional girl.

* * *

"He was my North, my South, my East, my West,

My working week and my Sunday rest.

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song.

I thought that love would last forever-I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun…" Funeral Blues, W. H. Auden, 1936.

"The most common proof offered of love between mates is the sorrow they exhibit when one of the pair dies." When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals, Jeffery Masson, 1995.

The wound that bleeds inside is the most painful-Arabic Proverb.

"_Oh Jesus, no, no!_" Ann wildly screamed as she saw Jack's eyes close and his head roll to the right. Pain seared through the claw slices in her left side and across the small of her back where Nduli had somehow managed to score a hit as Jack had thrown her to the side. Hysterical with desperation, Ann disregarded it as she locked her arms under the just-expired leopard's hulking shoulders and tried to pull the stocky, spotted carcass off Jack in adrenaline-injected spasms.

Heedless of the tom's blood flowing over her slender arms, she wildly yanked again and again, somehow managing to clumsily drag slightly more than her own weight's worth of defunct leopard off her boyfriend, then move it an additional few feet away in the gathering darkness for good measure. Now that Jack's lanky form, as terribly limp as a bag of sausage meat, was fully exposed, it made Ann's horror increase all the more as she ran to him and squatted back down.

Red carnations of blood were blooming all over his shirt and trousers, slashed and torn so many times that they now had more of a kinship to abattoir rags than to proper clothing. Ann could only guess at exactly how much of the blood belonged to Jack, and how much came from that horrible big cat, but she knew that her hero had contributed far too much.

Grabbing his shoulders and shaking, she fiercely pleaded, "Jack, _wake up and answer me!_ For the _love of God, __**wake up**_!" There was no response, and Ann's horror grew tenfold. "Answer me Jack, _please_!" she sobbed. Not knowing what else to do, she inserted the nails of a thumb and forefinger into each nostril and gave a brutal pinch, praying that the flash of pain would spur a reaction and make those eyes open.

No movement. No startled jerk or gasp. Holding her wrist up to his hooked nose and struggling to keep a level head, Ann prayed that she would feel hot breath puffing out against the sensitive skin. The omnipresent breeze however, cruelly masked any hint of lungs emptying. She felt under that square jaw with a pair of ivory fingers, and detected no discernible pulse. Placing both hands on his mutilated flanks, she tried to make out with quivering fingers if those sides were still leisurely shrinking and expanding in that comforting rhythm she savored whenever in his arms. They didn't seem to be. No, no, this couldn't be happening to her!

Fighting the urge to vomit, Ann took the playwright's matted bangs in her hand, cupped the other around the bloodied back of his skull, and slapped him across the face, yelling insanely into the face of a growing, crushing comprehension, "_Jack Driscoll, this is __**not**__ funny! Quit doing this, right now!_" The only response Ann got was the rolling motion of Jack's head as it reluctantly settled back into its previous position. She was acutely aware that her knowledge of medicine and how to read for signs of life left a lot to be desired when compared to a doctor's expertise, but Ann felt that one would've come to the same awful conclusion she was also arriving at.

A numb, nauseating, too-familiar race of horror and despair washed over Ann. As tears gushed from her eyes like boiling water, Ann Darrow shrieked as she fell to her knees. It had been agonizing enough to hear Simba cry out in loss and horrified desperation, but this-this was a hundred times worse, and she now was plunged into the purest form of anguish.

"Oh God, please don't!" she wailed beseechingly. "Don't take away Jack!" As if trying to keep his soul anchored, she threw her body across Jack's and rained tears all over it, shrieking, "Oh God Christ and the Holy Spirit, don't do this to me! He was the only good thing I had in my life! The _best_ good thing I've ever had," she mournfully amended. Performing a mocking little dance around the inside of her skull, a cruel imp's voice viciously sang out, _Well, we knew all along what happens to things like _those, _don't we doll?_

A miniscule part of Ann whispered that she was becoming covered in the blood of her sweetheart and Adonis, and that she should feel repelled, disgusted by it, but she really didn't care a fig as she wept on in the smothering, blue-black light. The searing pain from Nduli's twin claw strokes mingled with and nourished what seemed like an even more unbearable internal pain while she wept in devastation.

Ann Darrow absolutely wept, cradling Jack's head and flinging out great, shrieking, tear-drenched sobs into the sky. "No, not to Jack! No!" she yelled again and again. "Why? Don't let this be real!" They were tears of loss, of desolation, of heartbreak, of powerlessness. And of wrenching guilt.

It occurred so piercingly to Ann that Jack had nearly been killed in all sorts of horrific ways as he'd battled to rescue her on Skull Island, yet had somehow survived through it all. But now that they'd been reunited at last, his luck had finally run out-and right in her presence naturally. His royal Majesty Mufasa too, and innocent, playful Simba, were now as dead as poisoned rats after crossing paths with, then getting to know her. Surprise, surprise indeed. Sure, Ann had had no part in carrying out the executions, but she might as well have had handed down the awful verdict.

_Everyone goes away, and if I love someone, they're immediately doomed. Simba, Mufasa, and Jack, it's all because I chose to love them,_ she brutally self-flagellated herself through the wrenching tears, feeling like vinegar being dripped in those blue eyes. "I'm sorry Jack," she told him chokingly. "Wherever you are, please forgive me, and just know that _I didn't mean to_!! Lord above, I truly didn't mean to!"

_Still, at least you aren't to blame for shredding him into mincemeat like this,_ a small voice from inside her weakly comforted. Yeah, that awful, low-down, wacko leopard Nduli was- A terrible, foreign sort of fury spurted throughout Ann's bloodstream, and the tormenting flares of hurt coming afresh from the walleyed tom's blows only fueled it all the more, like the bandollerios in the shoulders of a Spanish fighting bull, as she sprung up and flashed around.

Teeth grinding in a vindictive snarl that would've utterly shocked her vaudeville friends and roommates back home to see, Ann took out what seemed a limitless rage on the leopard tom's corpse, limp and bloody as raw hamburger meat. She kicked it, stomped it, dug her fingers into the gorgeous pelt again and again to puncture the skin with her nails or rip out tufts of the fur that had formerly given the cat such pride. She grabbed a leg at each wrist or ankle and did what she could to break or dislocate a limb bone, succeeding sometimes, failing others.

With no thought for the blood she was touching, Ann grabbed one of the two sections of Jack's spear and used it for leverage to partly throw the tom's dead weight in a different posture. Nduli's husky body nonchalantly jumped or flopped slightly each time a vengeful blow connected. All the time she screamed out in a feral, terrible fury for the benefit of those obligingly listening nicked flower petal ears, her tears now the type that sometimes paradoxically accompanies great anger.

At length, one of Ann's wrathful kicks went wild and hit the place right where the first part of Jack's spear had pierced the leopard's breastbone. There was a quick, compressing burst of pain as she stubbed her great toe on both, and she drew back at it with a half-gasped "Ow!" Like a shock collar on a bird dog, the sudden here-and-gone flash of pain, already melting away, put things back into perspective as she stood back panting, still near blinded by the twin oceans that ran from her eye corners.

Nduli was dead as a pickled herring. Her hero had dealt out the ultimate punishment to this hell-spawned villain before he'd taken the writer's life, and as good as it felt to beat a dead leopard-a part of Ann coldly smirked at the grim pun-it was an exercise in futility. What mattered above all else was that her scholar-prince was dead, gone forever, and nothing could bring the man she loved-yes, _loved_-back.

Her slender legs, pink as the lining of a conch shell, gave out as before when she returned to Jack's body and heavily flopped down beside his head. Incredulously, she caressed each eyelid with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. Would they really never open again? Would she really never see them be illuminated by that smile? Was this incomprehensible tragedy actually happening to _her_? Her heart and senses told her it was, and Ann gave voice to the agony that gripped her broken soul with further tear-choked wails, ones that if anything, were perhaps even more piercing than the first time.

As a young girl, one of Ann's favorite tales had been the historical account of the relationship between Emperor Julius Caesar and Queen Cleopatra. It had always made her somewhat saddened though, whenever her mother had gotten to the part where the defenseless Caesar had been attacked and stabbed to death at the hands of Brutus and the others, and to think of how completely crushed Cleopatra must've felt to hear the news and see her lover's bloodied body. Several times, Ann had frankly told her mother out loud that she would rather be stabbed to death herself than have to see a man she loved all dead and covered in blood in front of her.

And now, in a cruelly ironic twist of fate, it had come to pass. And in her seemingly endless mourning, giving expression to an agony that could never be satisfactorily expressed, Ann understood too perfectly how that poor wounded queen of the Nile had felt. The way he looked now, Jack might as well have had a dozen daggers taken to him.

She'd only known this man, and he'd known about her existence, for hardly over six weeks. Although she'd had the touched, deeply appreciated impression that Jack had been striving to put those feeling into words even while he expired, and was profoundly grateful for it, he'd never managed to say out loud that he loved her in all that time. Jack had never offered to take her to live in his apartment with him when they got back, or brought up the possibility of getting married, or surprised her with an engagement ring or made love to her or walked with her to an altar. Deep down however, at the level where the love a man and woman share is above and beyond question, Ann understood so searingly that she had just been widowed.

"Christ, how could you do this to me?"

At long last, as gradually as summer changes into fall, Ann Darrow attained a numbing, glowing form of exhausted misery. She'd reached the point where there simply were no more tears left to cry, no more rending screams of lamentation to be flung into indifferent space. It was a stupefied condition that Ann knew too intimately, as if she'd had the wind knocked out of her during a session of horseplay, and she emotionally felt rather like a gutted hog. Certainly hurt her as terribly inside.

Not for the first time in a life of losses and abandonment, Ann felt that curious sensation well up. It was very like as if she was waiting for some unknown, hugely important event to occur, and yet, was just as listlessly positive that nothing would happen in her frigid little world ever again. Her head felt as if someone had flipped open the top of her skull, removed her brain, then replaced all the gray matter with a mixture of shredded muddy rags and soaked newspaper.

After at least ten minutes had passed-or maybe not passed for all Ann knew-it was a real shock for her to finally glance up from Jack and realize that the stars had come out during what she'd perceived as a state of absolute limbo, celestial salt crystals twinkling in the sky. The moon too, was starting to slowly rise, and a horseshoe bat flickered overhead. Life and nature was going on regardless of her agonized grief. That nearly seemed obscene.

Everything should've halted in its tracks. The night should've turned as inky black, silent, and freezing cold as the deep sea to match the state of Ann's own heart, with all its creatures stilled. But it was the way of this indifferent world, _needed_ to be that way. Tenderly, breathing shaky, she used a part of her slip that was spared from gore to wipe her love's face clean as best she could. With that complete, shedding a few straggling tears, Ann stroked Jack's angular cheek, then throat, bending to kiss that aquiline nose and high forehead. He would never smile back in appreciation.

Weakly, a drained Ann Darrow sat up, holding one of Jack's broad, still-warm hands in both her own as her wounds softly scorched. A fairly devout Protestant, Simone had often told her daughters that in times of crisis and despair, they should "always count their blessings." As she'd grown older and more experienced, Ann had added a more practical, perhaps slightly cynical, amendment to her mother's advice. Count your options.

Right now, Ann tried to winnow through those possibilities. There weren't many. If she went back to Pride Rock, Scar would instantly kill her, or far more probably have his hyenas do the deed-for there was no question in Ann's flaccid mind now that at the very least, the three hyenas which had been after Simba and Nala in the graveyard were minions of his. Probably even more were serving under him, for that matter. And indeed, she could hear the distant, haunting whoops of a number of hyenas approaching Pride Rock, all more or less from the south. Hey, that lion might've told them all beforehand to keep a lookout for any humans in the kingdom that fit her or Jack's description, and kill them immediately if they did show up, before any of the lionesses could see or worse, hear the truth from their lips.

Obviously she'd have to regretfully leave Jack's body where it lay and strike out on her own. The prospect was awful to even consider. No fire to keep her warm, protected, and to cook her food. No tools or weapons. No constant companionship and affection from someone who could also help defend her. No shelter. Alone, all alone, in a world of uncertainty and dangers.

Ann Darrow felt dreadfully isolated in a way she'd never, ever felt back in New York, not even after her older sisters had deserted her over the wild chance of jobs and lives on other horizons. At least there'd been other people around, and avenues that a smart, gutsy girl could take a chance at. Here in the African bush, it was a dreadful whole different ball game, and she felt like the last human being on Earth.

Right now, she was too spent to do anything else but obey the encompassing sorrow and weariness that steadily, relentlessly pulled at her. Still clutching Jack's hand and looking into his face, she laid down next to him, gingerly favoring her slashed side. Cold comfort it might've been, but Ann was still deeply thankful that the leopard's hooking claws hadn't desecrated that handsome visage. Even worse would've been if Nduli had managed to get the dewclaws of his hind feet into the belly of her Adonis-for she'd read enough to know how wounded leopards retaliated-and raked his intestines out like fat chalky snakes. Oh God, she couldn't have stood viewing those horrific results. Even Vlad the Impaler probably would've gone queasy at that.

It never struck Ann to view the idea of spending the night sleeping alongside a human corpse and holding its hand to be chilling or frightening-not when it was that of a man that had been her white knight and gentle, sensitive hero. And on some animal level, it was actually oddly comforting.

Tomorrow she would bury Jack as best she could to give him some measure of safety and dignity against the jackals and vultures, and then proceed to make a wide circle around the Pridelands, until she came to where the waterhole's river flowed out. She'd follow it downstream until it came to a lake or the sea, where she'd have a good chance of encountering other people-

A new idea flashed across Ann Darrow's mind, fueled by sorrow and the despair of deep loss. She didn't want to go through that stuff, live in solitary grief like that. She couldn't stand the prospect of being alone, with the bitter knowledge that memories were all she had left of Jack.

No, she would stay here with Jack forever, until she died herself. Like the stereotypically faithful fantasy heroine, she would keep this position, lying alongside her slain love through the burning heat of the day and the chilling cold of the night until she perished from exposure, dehydration, or the hyenas happened by and accepted her flesh as gladly as Jack's. Ann's insides clenched even harder at the thought of expiring in such a slow, agonizing way, to say nothing of doing it by choice.

But she figured it couldn't hurt any worse than the pain she was experiencing inside. Then too, it would be her just desserts. The font of tears had run dry, but the guilt was still shoving against her breastbone so hard she wouldn't have been too terribly amazed if it snapped. And it wasn't all sorrowful regret at having sentenced Jack to death just by loving him. At the end, when he'd needed her most, she'd failed him.

A small part of Ann chided that that was absolutely silly. The wounds causing her physical suffering had been received battling the walleyed leopard to try to save her fella. She'd tried to make whatever difference she could by stoning, kicking, yelling warnings. Most of all, Ann had done her utmost to follow another silent motto and never turn away, so that whenever Jack met her eyes, he would always see only her faith and love and belief in him shining through, not pitiful sobbing into her hands like in the cartoons or eyes knit shut in defeatist cowardice and anguish.

It hadn't been enough when all was said and done. What overpowered the voice of comfort was the awareness that Jack certainly hadn't let Ann down, but she'd failed him horribly. "It was all I could do! I tried my best for cripes sake!!" Ann groaned to the stars. "Jack had the only weapon that could cause damage! I had only little rocks and my bare hands to fight back with! It's not my fault that I didn't have a spear of my own or a knife or a gun!" she cried, in what Ann knew was actually a pathetic try at persuading herself into believing it.

Then, with the speed and unbelievable force of Kong when he'd come leaping out of the trees to kick the first tyrannosaur out from under her as she'd lost her grip on the colossal log, a sneering, cold idea slunk into her thought.

_That's right you pathetic floozy. You've killed poor Simba, Mufasa and Jack by letting them into your heart, and then you did nothing but go through the motions or give a few shouts when they needed you to intervene on your behalf. Then there were all those poor sailors whose lives were so gruesomely cut short while they tried to rescue you on Skull Island. Yeah, you pos-I-tive-ly _deserve_ to die for that, and before anyone else can be poisoned by touching you. _

_But why sit back and _wait_ to die Ann? Why don't you just do the world a favor and kill yourself right now? There's a nice tall cliff right over there-use it, you wicked multiple murderess, so that the world can finally say good blessed riddance._

Ann found herself pulling her legs underneath her torso, and levering herself off the grass. As she did so, matches of crimson pain shot along Nduli's gouges, and she cried out in response as fresh blood flowed from them. Pressing her hand against her side, only now was Ann finally aware of what a macabre sight she was, ragged slip and skin soaked and sticky from leopard and too much human blood. It wryly occurred to her that she looked very much like the undead Miss Lucy from Dracula after she'd finished a night of quaffing the blood of London's children. But unlike Lucy's trio of suitors, there was no one around here anymore to care about what she did to herself.

Ann fidgeted uncertainly for several moments, then forced herself to turn away from Jack and look at the gorge's rim, her destiny and release a crumbling black line against the starry blue sky. Her attention was seized by a high-pitched sound abruptly cutting through the air, a piercing whistle of alarm that issued in duet from two different beasts. Gritting her teeth against the pain as she gingerly turned, she saw that a hundred feet or so to the left, a startled pair of klipspringers, compact, short-necked antelope, were bounding off over the boulders in astonishing leaps on their rubbery, ballet-dancer hooves.

Coming to a stop, the male, bearing two little spikes of horns, cocked his diamond-shaped ears and briefly focused them in Ann's direction before relaxing. He then turned his attention to his mate, nibbling her dense silky coat and nuzzling her stocky flank, as if to calm her. The female looked like she'd somehow swallowed a small melon.

Ann understood what it signified, and a fresh wave of sorrow, despair, and bitterness seemed to smash her into the ground like Kong's knuckles as she took in the pendulous belly of the klipspringer doe. Jack wouldn't ever reassure or caress her tonight, or ever again. She'd never carry their child in her womb, or see that charming lopsided grin flow across his features as he proudly stroked her pregnant belly and bandied about what name they should bestow on it.

That decided it, and after looking back one more time, Ann whispered, "I'm sorry Jack. See you around," before trotting over to the gorge's rim. Twelve feet away. Six feet away. Eight feet away. Four feet away. Soon, all she would have to do was reach out with her left foot, tilt her center of gravity forward into space… Would it hurt when she hit the stone, and if so for how long? Was it _really_ a mortal sin like the Fathers claimed, or was that just a pile of bull put out to keep people from making a nasty mess on God's world…

Did she want to listen to the voice egging her on, saying that this meant release for both her and the world, or the one that yelled that this was selfish, that Jack didn't lay down his life just so the woman he loved could throw that sacrifice back in his face like this; that where there was life, there was always hope, and jumping from this high place would mean no more hope at all?

There's only the lady or the tiger, madam. Ann Darrow drew a steeling breath and took another couple of weighted steps forward.

Then there was a quavering, droning, feeble, yet unmistakably shocked voice speaking behind her. "Ann, what in Christ's name are you doing?"

Perhaps nothing is more beautiful and enchanting to the ears than hearing the voice of someone who you've given up for dead or as gone to you speaking your name. Backpedaling away from the precipice, Ann turned swiftly and sharply gasped. It came not just from the flash of pain, but at the sight of the speaker. Body shaking from shock and terrible pain as if in the grip of a seizure, teeth clenched in unspeakable agony and lightly propped up on one elbow, Jack Driscoll, looking very much like death warmed over yet still alive against all odds, gazed back at her.

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Next chapter: **Simian Salvation!**


	28. The Colobus and the Wormhole

Sorry about the long delay everyone. I've recently taken up an interest in reading more classic literature thanks to Kong, which has proven to be rather enriching. For better or worse though, it competes with my writing time. Also, and even more of a factor, I work a retail job, and the holidays are upon us. Nuff said.

Fair warning, this is yet **another** chapter that involves serious **blood** and **guts**-in more ways than one, as well as fairly detailed depictions of shock and the effects of significant blood loss. All in the name of realism I suppose.

As before, a deep thanks to all my readers and reviewers-let's see more of the latter please!

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"_I am dying Egypt, dying; only I here importune death awhile, until of many thousand kisses the poor last I lay upon thy lips_." **Antony**, Act IV, _Antony and Cleopatra_, William Shakespeare. 1606. 

"_Data look as if there may have been a transporting current through so-called, solid substance, which "opened" and then "closed," with no sign of a yawning. It may be that what we call substance is as much open as closed. I accept, myself, that there is only relative substance, so far as the phenomenal is concerned_" Charles Fort, _Lo!_, 1932.

"_The quantum theory of parallel universes is not the problem, it is the solution_." David Deutsch, _The Fabric of Reality_, 1997.

"_Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic._" Arthur C. Clarke, _Profiles of the Future_, 1973.

For a few beats of her pulse, Ann was thunderstruck. Just like when she'd awoken in Kong's embrace to see Jack squatting before her in the ape's mountain home, her mind struggled to accept this as part of her reality. He could _never_ have survived those horrid wounds!

But then the facts walloped her alongside the head with a blunt insistence, and yes, it was him and he was still alive, she'd know and go to his voice and his arms anywhere, and then Ann's feet were _flying_ over the grass and stones back to where his quivering, half-sprawled form lay.

A scorching pain pulsed through the claw wounds as she ran, and burst into an agonized flare as she hit the Rhodes grass on gracile skinned knees, but the ballooning gratitude and thankfulness Ann felt to hear Jack's voice and to see the life-glow still in his eyes canceled it out as the playwright went supine again. "Jack!"

In her eager thankfulness, Ann nearly threw herself onto Jack's lanky body, but managed to check herself just in time at the realization of the additional agony and damage that would inflict. So she settled for grabbing and holding the duo of long-fingered hands that he feebly extended to her. Dreadfully sweaty and chilled, they were literal icy mitts.

"Oh Jack, thank _Goodness_ you're alive!" she said, kissing the backs of both and then brushing her cheeks across them.

His breathing distressingly rapid and seemingly as shallow as a summer creek, Jack's half-reproachful, half-spent gaze locked with hers as he droned, "And you too. But please tell me you were _not _considering doing what I suspect you were feeling like doing. For God's sake, tell me you weren't going to throw that away."

There was a brief, shamed silence. "I wasn't really," Ann softly assured him. Sometimes a lie is a far better and far more comforting thing to hear than the truth, even if both already know that the words they hear will be spawned of falsehood.

"I truly hope so," Jack gravely responded.

"I know you're obviously not okay at all," Ann fretfully babbled, changing the subject, "but how do you feel Jack?"

"Like some unkind souls spread-eagled me in a shallow ditch and drove a steamroller crosswise over my body-a steamroller covered in pocketknives and razor blades. Then they shoved me into a 55-gallon drum filled with various sharp objects, tied it to a car, and dragged the whole damn thing down a gravel road as fast as they could for half a mile," he added with labored, halting dryness. Noticing the clotted, dark, mass of blood that her slip had become, his drawn face fell in horror. "Good Jesus Christ, you're _covered_ in blood Ann!" he gasped, gritting his teeth at the pain of his crunched ribs as they grated over each other. "Did he wound you _that_ seriously?"

"Most of it is his," Ann neutrally assured him as she nodded in the walleyed tom's direction. Getting the other part past her lips was a shuddering struggle, and Ann's eyelids knitted as she croaked out, "Or yours."

"How swell." Blue-white threads of lips compressing in an attempt to fight off the agony, Jack Driscoll pushed down with the heels of his hands and levered his vibrating trunk off the grass. As Ann shuffled back slightly, he silently stared over her shoulder for several moments at Nduli's flaccid corpse. Then a smile, weak yet paradoxically rich with smug pride, curled its way over his tanned features. "Well Hell's eternal fires," he droned in self-admiration. "I taught that bastard of a big kitty what's what, didn't I?" he remarked, a fuller smile making his eyes dimly glow as they met Ann's.

Somehow, a hollow smile bloomed across her face as Ann wept several tears of bittersweet pride and nodded, telling him, "You sure did Jack. You sure did. Thank you."

Sinking back to the dirt, Jack quiveringly replied, "Anything for my dame. You're welcome. Shame though," he said, voice sympathetic and doleful all at once. "He was an absolutely gorgeous creature, who would still be running free and joyful right now if he hadn't forced my hand against him."

Ann Darrow felt her jaw drop in surprise, totally taken aback. "Did I hear you correctly Jack!" she exclaimed sharply. "This leopard just shredded you into stew meat, clawed me, and yet you actually feel sorry for that-that nasty villain?"

"Crazy as it sounds, yeah, I do. I don't doubt that Scar fed him lies and promises aplenty to keep him loyal, just like he did to us and Simba in order to trust him. He didn't choose to be wicked on his own, but was just misled into following that path."

"Tearing you into an awful sight like this isn't 'just misled' to me Jack!" Ann replied icily, teeth and lips pressing together. "I absolutely thought that he'd murdered you and that you were…gone from me." The tears began flowing once more.

"I hate saying this, but he's murdered me already Ann," he panted.

"No, _**no**__**he hasn't**__ Jack_!" Ann firmly, almost hysterically shot back, denying what reason told her was true and inevitable. "Don't you _dare_ say hopeless talk like that Jack Driscoll!" she demanded, words almost explosive as she lowered her face to her boyfriend's, teeth half-bared in furious denial. "You're a tough egg, tougher than even Bruce! You'll survive this, I mean _look_, you've managed to survive everything _else_ on Skull Isla-"

As he extended a torn arm, Ann only had time to realize how terribly blue his fingernails were before Jack was gently silencing her, two corpse-cold fingers angled against her lips. He wistfully stroked them for a few moments; regret in his eyes, before whispering, "I'm so sorry to be as harsh as this-my Venus, my angel, my dame-but not this time. I can't be fixed up, and those-those are just the facts," he choked, eyes half-closing. "At least you won't have to tear your garments," he fatalistically joked.

"No. Don't say that. I'll find a way to take care of you Jack, I promise I will," Ann tearfully promised.

"All you can do now is just comfort me," Jack thinly replied, lanky frame shaking in both physical and emotional torment. "I said last morning that I'd shed my last drop of blood to keep you safe, and-well, let's just say that it turned out to be all too prophetic," he added wearily, giving a helpless smile. "I am dying, Egypt, dying."

He was having increasing difficulty keeping his head up, and Ann slipped her right hand under the back of his neck to help support it, a sense of revolted horror visiting her as the blood from his slashed scalp warmly coated her fingers. It crushingly reminded her of the aftermath of when the nightmare savages had been routed in their village by Englehorn and his men, when she'd spied Jack lying in the mud as her stupor of soul-corroding terror began to drain away.

For the second time in just six minutes, as she'd seen his scalp blood flowing out from where it had been laid open by the tiger shark teeth which studded the native clubs, Ann had slashed the air with a visceral scream, the kind she'd only thought happened in Hollywood. How unsurpassingly grateful she had been to hear Apirana, the Maori sailor with his tattooed facial filigrees, and that smoke-eating Lumpy both proclaim and assure her that her sheik was merely knocked senseless!

The memory of the despairing grief and how it had threatened to swamp her returned at the thought, combining with Ann's heartbreak to form a bitter, ulcerating elixir. This time, there weren't going to be any miracles or second chances. Minutes before, she had thought that her font of tears had been drained dry. Now, new ones were somehow running down her pink cheeks.

"Ann, please don't," Jack softly begged. "Don't do that. Please, I've never been able to bear seeing you cry, and I don't want to see you doing that when-when I can't open my eyes anymore," he shallowly said.

"I can't easily do that," Ann spluttered. With a great, deep breath of effort, she looked into Jack's eyes and forced out a painful question. She didn't want to say it, but Jack was also slipping deeper into profound shock by the minute. Very soon, he most likely wouldn't have the mental capacity to answer any question at all.

"Are you-" she gulped, "are you sorry that you ever became more than just a stranger to me Jack? What I mean is, do you blame-"

"Ah-ah. Don't you even-ah!-consider finishing that question Miss Ann Darrow," Jack bluntly told her. "I'm not sorry for even a moment that I ever fell head over heels for you and became your white knight. I still don't know exactly what magic you worked on me, but I truly couldn't think of a more deserving woman to be called my angel."

Continuing, he urged, "And no matter what Ann, you keep on going on. Please, stay alive and get back home for me, you hear? Still, it couldn't hurt matters if the Three Fates finally quit this business of always giving you the starring role in your own p-personal Perils of Pauline series," he wryly added.

"That's fair enough," Ann nodded as she sobbed, uncertain if she'd actually felt her mouth corners give a flickering twitch.

"Good," Jack reedily sighed in relief. "Now please, don't be crying Ann. Instead, tell me what'll happen when you and I _both_ get back to New York." Even now, in the last minutes of his life, her Jack of Hearts was still enjoying theater, requesting to listen to a pathetically comforting play of denial that Ann would write, produce, and perform for him tonight. It was a mighty effort to brush aside how he had impending death written all over him.

"Well," she sobbingly gasped, "when we first see our home again, it'll be a beautiful winter night, and the lights of the buildings will be shining like fireflies. Then we'll both jump for joy into each other's arms at having made it back, and I'll kiss you all over for having brought us back alive-even in front of the entire ship's crew and all the dock workers," she proclaimed, forcing a smile.

"That's beautiful," Jack crookedly smiled. "Do go on."

Trying to ignore how awfully cold he felt, Ann went on with "Then you'll pick me up in your arms and personally carry me to the nearest cab, and we won't care about the driver as we-"

Abruptly, Ann was distracted by the sound of two objects musically knocking together, and feet slapping against the ground. What ever creature or person was producing it, they were coming in haste, and from the direction of the gorge. Having the presence of mind to considerately lay Jack's head down, she backed away on her knees and turned to face whoever or whatever was fast-approaching. (Jack too, had heard it himself at that point and now had feebly turned his head to also get a better view, struggling to keep it raised.)

What Ann's peepers, then mind, grasped impaled her lengthwise with screaming horror. It felt like both her soul and the pit of her stomach were being dissolved by a mixture of molten steel and concentrated hydrochloric acid. She violently screamed, so hard that it seemed to almost rupture her lungs, and shook convulsively with utter terror. As she did, Ann distantly felt a gush of some hot liquid suddenly soak her satin tap pants and stream down her thighs. She'd just pissed herself.

And Christ, was there ever a good reason to! The figure approaching them under the three-quarter moon was built low to the ground, hunched and wizened. The face was wrinkled and leathery, fringed by masses of white hair that almost glowed in the moonlight and seemed as scraggly and disheveled as cobwebs. _**SHE was here to finish with them!**_

"Oh Christ, for crying--out loud, what h--horrid thing is going to happen now?" Jack fearfully questioned, doing his best to half-turn onto his palms. As his gaze fixed on to the same figure as Ann, he thinly exclaimed, "No, I _can't believe_ this!"

Convulsing so hard that she honestly felt she might shake to pieces, Ann's breath caught as she stared wild-eyed at the oncoming island crone. Last night's dream _**had**_ been true! The native witch had sent her executioner's spirit here to possess Nduli and send him after the lanky white man whom she so hated. Against the odds, Jack had managed to win, despite receiving mortal wounds. But now, through some evil, powerful magic, this hideous, inhuman witch, spurred on by frustration at the leopard's failure to kill him cleanly, had come here to have the pleasure of _personally_ finishing Jack off!!

Already, she was nearly close enough for Ann to make out some details. Having lived on her own on the streets of Manhattan for 15 years, Ann considered herself reasonably brave, and had learnt early on how to stand up for herself, even physically if need be. And she was not going to let _her_ kill Jack before her eyes if she could possibly help it.

Still, Ann didn't doubt that the malicious hag closing with her was a far more experienced fighter. She also had that long, weighty-looking staff in hand for a weapon, while Ann had only her bare hands, and she didn't know if her adversary had a knife or perhaps even a poisoned needle ready to meet her as well.

Standing erect, Ann attempted to master the shudder in her voice as she straddled the pallid playwright in the blue-white light and coldly threatened, "Get away and go back to your island hell! You _dare_ harm Jack and I'll break ev-"

"I am _not_ here to harm Jack Miss Darrow, or you for dat matter," the figure proclaimed in an exotic, heavily accented patois. "Everyting is okay, and I am not like _her _in de least."

His voice was a bubbling, sonorous, xylophonic drone to Ann's ears. Just listening to it somehow instinctively caused some of her alarm to dissipate. As it did, she realized that the speaker was not a human, but had a grizzled pelt, a doglike, bearded muzzle bisected by a thick, cherry red line that was flanked by two great naked, furrowed patches of lavender-blue skin, and a long kinked tail. It was some kinda baboon.

"How do you know our nam-" Ann began to uneasily ask, never taking her eyes from the primate's yellowish ones as he loped up to them, using his staff for support.

"Oh great Ngai, dis is a disaster! Dis is truly bad!" the baboon cried out, mouth springing open in profound distress as his peepers swiftly swept across the dead leopard tom, the grisly jumble of trampled grass, torn, scuffed soil, sprays and patches and smears of blood-and especially a slashed, shock-wracked Jack Driscoll.

"Say, who are--you?" Jack managed to wheeze as Ann nervously stayed in her spanning stance, one hand noncommittally cupping her side wound. "What are you--here for? To be the latest to--have a try--at killing Ann--or I while I'm laying here--bleeding to death?" he hissed accusingly.

"I am Rafiki. And no, I want to save your life Mr. Driscoll," the baboon said in hurried earnest, "besides treating Miss Darrow's wounds."

Ann's mind wrestled in incomprehension for a dozen seconds as she maintained her resolute guard. Then it sunk in. His words ignited a great spark of thankful hope, which rapidly flared up into a veritable bonfire of grasping optimism in Ann's breast. She'd been scared out of her wits just thirty seconds ago on first seeing Rafiki. Now he was a heaven-sent savior for Jack! "Do you truly mean that?" she queried in expectant disbelief. "Please help us any way that you can!!"

"Of course Miss Darrow," Rafiki responded. "I'm a healer, and dat is what I do." Turning away and facing back toward the gorge, he suddenly, sharply, barked out in agitation, "Mbathi! Where are you dawdling at? Hurry **up **for Ngai's sake! For everyone's sake," he added in a strained mutter.

"Mbathi? Who's that?" a puzzled, flustered Ann asked. "And what the devil do you mean by everyone's sake?"

"A friend of mine," Rafiki responded, only half-listening. "He also serves me sometimes by acting someting like de vehicle you humans call an ambulance. Mbathi!" he commanded again.

Both Jack and Ann were absolutely flabbergasted. "An _am_bulance?" Jack wheezed in surprise, words cut off as he clutched at himself in agony. "Oh God!"

"How could you _possibly_ know about somet-" Ann began, even while she knelt to comfort Jack with her handstrokes.

She was cut off by a deep, muffled, staccato drumbeat coming at them across the plain from the east.

_PAH-RHUMP, PAH-RUHMP, PAH-RHUMP, PAH-RHUMP._

Urine was squeezed out of Ann's tap pants and dribbled down the insides of her legs as she gingerly turned to see the monolithic form of a white rhino bull galloping at them, the opaline moonlight shining off the two great conical horns perched on the massive wine-cask head. The rhino slowed down and briefly checked at the perimeter of what had become a grisly dueling field, his bleary little eyes widening as he gave a puffing snort of alarm at the scents of blood and death and fear. Instinctively, he wheeled in the opposite direction, and came close to heading for the hills, but then somehow managed to collect himself.

"Where were you?" Rafiki chided sharply. "Didn't it sink in when I told you dat dis was _**not **_an occasion for wasting time Mbathi? Look at de state he's in!"

Heavily panting, (a clear indication of major agitation in rhinos, but not necessarily fatigue), Mbathi opened his blocky, squared-off mouth, and drawled, "I tried to cross with all the speed I could, at the best place I could find, _Tabibu_ Rafiki. Surely I'm not to blame for the fact that I lack the ability to grasp and get up rocky slopes nearly as well as you can?"

"No, you are not," the baboon conceded. "At any rate, you're here where you should be-Ann, do you tink your wounds will prevent you from helping me put Jack on Mbathi's back so we can get him to a place with medical help? He's worse off dan even I was expecting," he mumbled under his breath.

"I frankly have no idea how there could be any sort of doctor around here Rafiki, but no, I absolutely can help get him on. I'll take his legs if you'll take his shoulders," a relieved yet confused Ann offered.

As both she and the baboon then hastily bent down, Jack inexplicably drew his slashed arms and legs up to his torso, a grimace of agony screwing his chiseled features before and as he firmly pushed out, shoving their helping hands away in seeming obstinacy, eyes rolled up to gaze at Rafiki as he did so. He was _deliberately _rejecting their efforts at rescue!

Weakly, Jack then half-turned before Ann's legs, inducing her to step back, body and mind cringing at the horrid smell and feel of her own urine and blood. A suspicious tone entering his thin, reedy voice, the wounded playwright droned, "And you're--ah!--just doing this out of--the goodness of your heart, right--pal?"

"_Jack!!_" Ann cried in shock. "Don't you want to live for goodness' sake? I certainly do!"

Keeping his blinkers affixed on Rafiki in the moonlight as he agonized in the clotted grass, sprawled on his side, Jack dryly said, "Oh, you bet Ann. It's just-that I--I think I smell a rat," he croaked.

"Mr. Driscoll, I assure you dat dere is no treachery behind dis, just de generous impulse to help," Rafiki placated. "Come on, let us pick you up. Time is of de essence."

"Say, why exactly--do you want to help _me_ so particularly, out of all--the creatures that receive brutal--maulings and die in torment every--s--single day?"

"My dear Goodness Jack, do you understand the foolishness you're sputtering?" Ann yelled. "Oh Christ above, he's _addled in the brain_ Rafiki!" she cried, despairingly pressing her knuckles into her eye sockets. Her beloved white scholar/knight had brain damage! He was _ruined for life!_

"I'm still--perfectly sound of--mind Ann," Jack neutrally assured her. "Sound enough--to remember--that on the last couple--of--of occasions when someone--extended an--offer of something extremely--attractive--one of them just within--the last four hours--it turned out to be a vicious, self-serving trick on their part," he said, making his words as pointed as the pain of his shattered ribs would allow.

Ann knew with an understanding pity that he was speaking of not just Scar, but how Carl had utilized the temptation of an easy two grand to essentially kidnap him. She didn't really have any idea to respond back, and there was a tense, uncomfortable silence for a few moments before Rafiki said, "Listen Mr. Driscoll. De life of your human bodies is far less deeply seated and a lot more fragile dan dat of de nonhuman animals here. You are both very special, new tings in de Pridelands, and that makes you very worthy indeed of being aided."

"Well, that sure makes me proud to know," Ann weakly, half-jokingly quipped.

Ignoring her, Rafiki went on, "I am a baboon who only eats fruit and roots and insects. I do not eat humans, and my job is to help dose who are in need of healing."

As his anemic body quivered and shook, Jack breathily responded, "I hope-to Christ you're b-being as-straight with me as an arrow pal. If you're not--then just--have mercy and—l--leave Ann and I be. I can't –-can't stand being be--betrayed like that--a third time, so…just let me die," he whispered, turning onto his mutilated back once more. "Just let me die."

For a second or two, the strangest expression flowed over Rafiki's wrinkled visage. It was a blend of intense pity, and something else-self-loathing? A private disgust perhaps? Then it vanished equally quickly.

"I am deeply sorry dat others have deceived you in de past, Mr. Driscoll," Rafiki firmly, sharply told him. "But neither Miss Darrow-who loves and needs you-or _I_ want you to die, and soon it shall be too late to get to help! You _MUST _come with us!" There was an overtone of something beyond hysteria and desperation in that barked, crowing command.

"Please Jack, he's right. Don't you dare waste precious time by being stubborn like this! Now get onto that rhino!" Ann ordered, pointing.

"Well, I'm willing--to trust _you_--at least," Jack shallowly told her, indirectly acquiescing.

Despite his horrid wounds, Jack insisted that he had enough strength to stand for a brief time, and then lean against Mbathi's dusty side. Rafiki and Ann would both take his legs and push up, then once enough of him was over the rhino's back, Ann would go around and take control of his arms. Finally, they would then turn his body so that his head faced the rhino's horned one, jump on themselves, and secure the writer's limbs to prevent him from falling off.

As Ann kept her hands under Jack's shoulders for support, his angular face contorted in raw, pure, agony and exertion as he somehow managed to lever his quaking half-corpse off the blood-smeared grass in the most astonishing display of will that she'd ever witnessed. The African night rang with a distressing cry of scraping pain as he grasped his crunched side. Abruptly, as he began to lean back against the rhino's colossal, kneeling hulk, the writer's expansive hand left his splintered ribs and flew to his midriff. Like a whitetail buck that has just taken a fatal bullet or arrow, his muscles locked and he froze, becoming a statue.

"Are you about to vomit Jack?" Ann asked in concern. "You'd best-"

His response was a weak headshake. "I--I feel like something--just burst open. And under--my hand--it's like--I'm grasping heated Jell-O."

_Heated Jell-O…_Ann frowned in perplexity. Then the terrifying implication slapped her. _Oh God! _

"Move your hand Jack," Ann said anxiously. "Just for a moment." She was frightened out of her wits at the possibility of the gruesome view his blood-daubed hand could well reveal, and yet, scared by the prospect of _not _seeing and knowing how even _worse_ off he was. When the spectacle was revealed, it struck her numb, and dumb, with nauseating, queasy horror.

"Oh Great Ngai!!" Rafiki shouted waveringly.

Ann said nothing, but clapped her hands over her mouth to muffle her primal shriek of horror and revulsion. In the next instant though, she was taking charge, grasping Jack Driscoll's calves alongside the baboon and unceremoniously _heaving _him onto the white rhino's concave back. She helped Rafiki to get the playwright, covered in dirt and dust and blood and bits of grass, into a lengthwise position, and then proceeded to spring up onto their kneeling organic ambulance with the agility of-well, a monkey.

At this point, the full, sickening terror of what had just happened to him sunk in for Jack. "Oh my God. That leopard just gutted me, didn't he!!! _Jesus Christ, he gutted me!!!_" his voice rang out. On its heels, while Ann, gritting her teeth and clenching her eyes as she courageously tucked the exposed, foot-long, hot loop back into the slash in his body cavity, he then emitted what Ann would later regard as the most distressing sound of all during her whole four-day ordeal.

It was when at that moment, the playwright did something she'd never imagined possible, and started to cry himself. It is always so awful, so utterly upsetting to see someone that you love weeping, especially if their tears are ones of horrible pain and despair. But when that person is not only someone that you love and are close to, but someone you are also accustomed to view as your protector and rock, it almost brings one to a state of sheer panic. They are supposed to take whatever comes with a stiff upper lip and act as your psychological lifeline, not remind you that they too, are merely fragile human creatures composed of mere tissue.

Mercifully for a near-hysterical Ann Darrow however, seated on the playwright's extended, sliced legs to secure his body, her fingers stuffed into his abdominal wound, Jack's helpless tears didn't last long before the shock finally managed to trump the massive surges of adrenaline that had been roiling through his disappearing blood, plunging him into a state of semi-consciousness.

At that, for some reason Ann couldn't even guess at, Rafiki became positively _frantic_-no, beyond frantic-, urging Mbathi to go as fast as was physically possible. He was beyond stressed, and a part of her groped for a reason _why_ the mandrill would be so worked up about the impending death of a man he'd never even met, and that frankly shouldn't matter to any other soul out here besides her.

"Where are we taking Jack?" Ann shouted to Rafiki.

His callused bottom keeping both of the limp writer's arms in place as he directed the bull rhino like some strange mahout, a wildly tensed Rafiki responded, "I'm taking both of you to Mganga's tree, so dat you will be safe in another kingdom and receive treatment. Dere are hyenas all over de Pridelands now for some reason, and dey would devour you both if I tried to bring you to mine, no matter what I did to stop them."

_So we _are_ the only ones who know about what Scar did,_ Ann thought as she leaned forward and adjusted to the gait of the horned monolith beneath her. She was far too fearful about Jack though, to pursue the topic, since this was certainly not the time to distract Mbathi or Rafiki. All their energies needed to be focused on getting the man she loved to what she assumed was some kinda medical help.

For all their enormous bulk, rhinos are incredibly fast and agile animals, able to hit speeds of 34 miles an hour at a trotting gallop, and pivot and turn with all the skill of a snowboarder. Mbathi's compact legs were doing an admirable job of engulfing grassland, but their progress still seemed so horridly, dreadfully slow to the former vaudeville actress. The calls of the night's creatures-scops owls, laughing doves, nightjars, eagle-owls, quail, grass frogs, toads, tree crickets, mole crickets and katydids-all seemed to Ann to possess an underlying, imploring quality that expressed the desperate anxiety within her own breast.

Every second of that fly by the seat of your pants ride was a battle for Ann Darrow against the most overpowering sensation of nausea she'd ever experienced, fully aware of the sickening truth that she was literally touching her fellow's own guts, keeping them from bouncing out like loosened ropes as she had to endure undergarments saturated in her own nasty urine. Whether he was able to hear and understand her any longer in this stupor of shock was pretty doubtful, yet Ann repeatedly recited a mantra of encouragement and bravery as they pressed onward, telling Jack that she loved him, that he was her white knight and Jack of hearts, to hang in there, to stay calm and not be scared, because everything would be okay, that he was going to be put back together, stitched up, and healed, to not die on her, that she'd take care of him just like he'd be taking care of her, to keep fighting for just a bit longer.

At last, Ann spied a large, fairly dense woodlot of yellow-barked acacias, African greenheart, and mimosa bushes up ahead of them in an expansive, moist hollow. The moonlight, flashing across the leaves as they rustled in the night's breeze with an incongruous calmness, transformed them into a spilled sack of new nickels. On attaining the gray, nondescript perimeter of brush and young trees that resolutely flowed out onto the plain, Rafiki commanded Mbathi, "We're here. Now slow down." The bull rhino, savagely panting from his fevered running, was too happy to concede as he entered the trees along an elephant trail. Silver and blue-white pillars, tubes, lances of moonlight played over and stabbed at them as Rafiki used the gentle pressure of his heels to direct the rhino along the route he wanted. After traveling what Ann later estimated as approximately 650 yards into the forest, one of Rafiki's gray-black hands flew up into the air as he snapped, "Stop!"

Grasping his staff, the baboon vaulted off the rhino's nape as the baffled Ann watched, and half-ran, half-swung 30-35 feet to a magnificent greenheart, the tree's crown looming 68 feet above the moon-spangled leaf litter.

On reaching it, Rafiki placed his staff down, and rushed up the tree's trunk, displaying all the expertise of Kong as he'd tackled the tortured landscape of Skull Island's geology with her as passenger.

As the mandrill ascended, wiry coiled muscles working under his gold grizzled black pelt, he shouted up at the crown, "Chepeo! Are you dere?"

As Ann followed the direction of his blinkers, the branches came alive with crashing forms that sprang from treetop to treetop, uttering wild, croaking coughs of alarm. "Mwuepe, hang on tight!" "Yyaaaahhh!!" "If it's a leopard or a caracal, I am _so_ royally-" "Oh crap!" "Mommmmyyyyy!!" "Let's get outta here!" "Where are you Mtoto!"

"Everybody calm down! It's just me, Rafiki, de Pridelands shaman!" the baboon hurriedly assured them.

There was a silence, the hoo-ha petered out, and then, as Rafiki stood on a thick limb, Ann was able to get her first good look at the creatures he'd so badly startled as they returned and descended to meet him, breathing heavy. They were Eastern black and white colobus monkeys, sturdy primates mantled from nape to tail tip in long, luxurious fur, their livery bearing an uncanny resemblance to that of a striped skunk, except for the black tails which ended in magnificent white brushes, and the ivory ring that bordered each one's glum, hangdog-looking face. Snub noses, looking like the flattened, horizontally compressed ends of spoons, bent down over their upper lips.

One large male bounced straight down to the mandrill, brows furrowed authoritatively above his eyes as the moonlight sent silver accents over the cape of shaggy white hair that extended in a great U from the shoulders to over his lower back.

"Rafiki?" the colobus said in irritation.

"I am he."

"What is the meaning of disturbing our sleep and scaring the living daylights out of my troop like this!"

"I am terribly sorry Chepeo," Rafiki rapidly apologized, "but we have a dery badly wounded human here, along with his kike, who has wounds of her own, and it is imperative for Mganga to help us at her tree."

"What do you need _our _shaman's help for when _you're _a shaman yourself Rafiki?" Chepeo sighed in puzzled exasperation, rubbing both temples. "Why couldn't you just help them out at your _own_ tree by yourself?"

"Because the hyenas are running all over the place now and it's not safe any more!" Ann replied in severe agitation. "Just please _help_ us. Help Jack!"

One female colobus' eyes widened in shock, and she gasped, "Hyenas moving into the _Pridelands_? But Mufasa wou-"

"Obviously that mean something's gone terribly wrong over there," a half-grown male muttered in deep concern.

As for Chepeo, after momentarily meeting Ann's gaze, then eyeballing Jack's slashed form, he barked, "Where in the Leafless Forest is Mganga! Go get her!" he ordered, without waiting for a response. "Meanwhile-what's your name human?" the colobus asked, his focus returning to Ann.

"Ann Darrow," she answered.

"Ann, what sort of beast did this to you and your kiume?"

"It was a leopard," she breathed out. "And he didn't act on his own. He was _sent_ by this evil-"

"Sent? By who Miss Darrow?" Rafiki interrupted, turning his head back and hunching forward with a suddenly intense interest.

There was a rustling crash, and the colobus monkey Chepeo had dispatched landed, tail flailing for balance as he scurried back and informed his leader, "Mganga fled to her healing tree. She's literally straight on my-"

"Heels," a female voice finished as another black and white colobus, vaulting through the pearly sky, dropped onto a branch, the brutal thrashing of leaves accompanied by a random, wild, _klick-klick-klick_. As the shaggy primate raced over to Chepeo, Ann saw that the new arrival was a middle-aged female colobus, her neck graced by a necklace of large seeds, beautiful bird feathers, and semiprecious stones.

"Where are the injured humans Chepeo?" the new monkey snapped out.

"Right down here with me," Rafiki responded, trumping the alpha male before he could speak. Clearly having never seen humans in her life either, Mganga came out onto a branch above them and craned forward, peering at them in unmistakable fascination. _There's time to regard us as curiosities later! For crying out loud, can't someone just get down to work and start putting Jack together again before it's too late? _Ann thought in shrill, frantic exasperation.

As if reading her mind, Mganga suddenly blinked and looked around, briskly saying, "What's everyone standing around for? Get that rhino to my healing tree and these two up it!!"

Without any further ado, the white rhino was following Mganga as she bounced through the limbs of the figs and greenhearts with the aplomb of a practiced hurdle jumper, Rafiki running alongside Mbathi on the forest floor.

Mganga's medical tree was only fourteen trees to the north, an old, big specimen that projected an aura of venerable wisdom and seemed to tap in to a deep, hidden undercurrent of sanctity.

On attaining it, Chepeo himself was there to greet Ann, climbing down to inform the former actress, "Ann, my troop is going to lift you and Jack up to the tree and carry you both to where Mganga is. Are you comfortable with that? We won't let either of you fall," he added.

Comprehension socked her right in the gut. She bit her lip for a split second. Her first, resistant impulse was to yell at them, _No, no, don't you dare __even think__ about chucking me around through the branches of some tree thirty feet in the air!_ "Yes, that's fine," she reluctantly nodded.

As Mbathi pressed his side against the tree, the shaggy, black and white shapes of the colobus monkeys jumped down en masse to the white rhino's back. Ann went supine as best she could manage for their benefit, and in a flash their callused, firm, gray-black hands were seizing her by the wrists, the ankles, the elbows, the knees, the upper arms, the nape of her neck, her calves. Mercifully, the monkeys knew to refrain from pulling her by her frazzled, wheat-yellow curls.

She felt herself being lofted into the air, dancing moonlight, whispering leaves, twigs, silky fur and twirling tails flashing across her vision and brushing across her soiled pale skin as her smaller primate couriers passed her up through the strata of greenheart branches, Rafiki assisting by pushing her trunk's weight up from below. Their strength amazed her, especially for beasts that were so, so, so much lesser in size then Kong would've been even as an infant.

Colobus monkeys owe their moniker to the Greek word for mutilated, thanks to their near-total lack of a thumb. Nevertheless, they can still grip objects between their fingers and palms, and like all monkeys, when they get a hold of something, prying it loose is next to impossible.

Within moments, the deed was done, and Ann's mind registered stopping, then being carried forward into a sort of natural bowl formed by where the tree's trunk split into its main boughs, where Rafiki put her down in a prone position. As she took stock of her surroundings and calmed her racing heart, Mganga padded up to Ann, voice kindly yet worried as she asked, "Hello there Ann. I hope your ascent wasn't too hard on you," she smiled.

"It was interesting," Ann responded, gingerly pushing herself into a seated position, grimacing in disgust at the wee-wee. "But please don't ever do something like that to me again," she warned dryly. "Or Jack-where is Jack!"

"I have him right here Miss Darrow," Rafiki soothingly answered as he carefully, slowly, climbed up the tree's trunk, holding the near-comatose playwright as several colobus monkeys gently held up his dark arms and legs. An attractively marked Wahlberg's spiny flower mantis scuttled out of their way and up a bough as they approached. One colobus was half-sprawled over his midsection, her face a mask of disgust at having to lie in blood. It was a wellspring of comfort for Ann to see that he was still breathing, and how the monkeys were handling the playwright as if he was made of cardboard.

Delicately, the mandrill and his helpers placed Jack on his back beside Ann. It hurt to see him like that just as badly as it did the first time, and she felt the tears return. Mganga put a tender, reassuring hand on Ann's upper back for a moment before grabbing a bowl made out of some large animal bone, taking some kind of ointment out with her fingers, and slathering it onto the playwright's terrible scourges.

"Ann, where did you and Jack come from, and how far away are others of your kind?" Mganga pressed, even as her brown-black eyes never left the writer she was tending to.

"I don't know the answers to those questions for the life of me," Ann responded, shrugging her slender shoulders. "Jack and I were fleeing from this enormous ape called Kong, big as a house, and suddenly there was this huge green flash that seemed to be both inside and outs-"

She was cut off as Mganga suddenly sprang up to her hind feet with a guttural scream, tail and alabaster cape of fur tossing as she slapped her hands over her mouth, jaw slack with unrestricted panic. "A **whole-body multiverse spatial-temporal transfer**! But only a _healer_ could perform such a feat, and I-"

"It was my doing, Mganga," Rafiki neutrally confessed.

"_You're_ the reason we both ended up here?" Ann said in amazement, eyes widening. Her knowledge of science and astronomy was severely lacking, to be frank, but she was still able to grasp the concept that she and Jack had apparently been _transported_ to someplace else-perhaps another planet, or even another universe!

But how could there be another universe? Wasn't there just a single one? It boggled her mind to even consider such an incredible thing. Then again, after Skull Island and taking animals, the unexpected was now a matter of course, and had to _be_ expected.

"Yeah Rafiki, you're responsible for getting them into our world?" Mganga snapped. "I'd _never_ have expected _you_, of all the healers in the region, to do something this wildly stupid and careless, especially when you're normally so astute and my senior!! And then you allow something like _this_ to happen to them to boot!!" pointing at Jack. "Oh Ngai!!" she croaked, clutching the fur on each side of her head.

"So that's how you know our names, isn't it?" Ann excitedly surmised in the meantime, seeking the mandrill's attention.

Holding up his hands, Rafiki parried, "I know dat what I did was foolish Mganga, but I thought dat dey would both be at or near Pride Rock, not way out at de border gorge with a leopard at dem! And every second counts right now, so chide me later," he barked.

"Thanks to you, if the worst happens, there might not be a later-for any living being," the colobus glowered.

"What are you two even talking about?" Ann cried in helpless frustration. "Please, I don't understand!"

"Ann, we can't provide the kind of medical treatment that you and Jack require right now," Mganga told her, sending an awful shard of glass through Ann's heart. It mercifully disappeared in the next moment when the colobus she-shaman continued, "So we're going to teleport both of you to Sector 12 General Hospital, where you'll both get the best surgeons in the universe."

"What? _**In the universe**_!" Ann sharply gasped. "You mean that _Martians_ will be operating on us or something?"

But her inquiry went unanswered as Rafiki picked up a tortoise shell partly filled with water, and the colobus monkey put various powders, seeds, and colorful stones into it.

Then, as Ann anxiously, uncertainly shuffled over to Jack, protectively draping an arm over the playwright's chest, both Rafiki and Mganga sat on either side of the impromptu bowl and began rhythmically, musically, fiercely chanting in Swahili. As they did so, both monkeys snatched at the air with their hands as if plucking fruit, made parting motions with their arms as if doing the breaststroke, and scraped at the bark with their feet, like they were trying to draw something out of the tree itself.

While Ann stared in bemused awe, she felt a curious sensation around her. It was if the air and the space around her was shifting somehow, lazily crawling like honey or syrup. It was like nothingness was being parted to form a gap, similar to how a person separates bread dough on a counter with their hands. Later, she would tell Jack that the best way to comprehend what she'd seen and felt was similar to what would happen if he walked up to a huge chunk of ice, taken one of the magnesium flares that he'd utilized in the hellish insect pit, lit it, and then pointed it straight at the mass of frozen water.

As Ann Darrow watched in disbelief, cobalt eyes saucering, the space between Rafiki and Mganga began to whirpool, turning a mixture of spearmint green, streaked with the tan of her wool trench coat. It went faster and faster, becoming progressively larger. Curiously, even though she couldn't have willed a muscle into motion for the life of her, Ann found this particular phenomenon that she was witnessing-surprisingly-not to be all that terrifying. Unearthly and hypnotic, yes, but not terrifying.

Whatever was going on here, this oval that the monkey shamans had conjured up wasn't actually harming her or Jack, at least not at the moment. And it was miles beyond her capacity to even start to understand.

Then a voice came through. "We're getting an interuniversal transmission!"

"What! No one's ever received one of those in _years_ here!" another, bizarrely, yet charming, childishly accented voice replied in amazement.

"Is dis de good people at Sector 12 General Hospital I've reached?" Rafiki asked, now having halted his chanting.

Yet another voice answered back, this one bearing a skirling, coyotelike overtone. "None other!" it proudly responded.

_Sweet Mary, what sort of beings are awaiting us over there?_ Ann thought.

"Yes, we are," the most "human" voice replied. "Who are you and why have you broken through such a barrier to contact us?" At that moment, the spinning mass of green and beige split, to be replaced by a clear, distinct human face.

The man Ann found herself looking at through the weird vortex seemed to be German, or Dutch, and in his early forties. She could see from the movements of his eyes too, that he visibly saw and was reacting to their presence as well. It was like seeing some strange, absolutely zany cross between a play and a movie.

"I am Rafiki, a shaman from dis universe, and dis is Mganga, a fellow shaman," Rafiki said rapidly. Continuing on, he urged, "I am dery sorry to say dis, but I accidentally transported two humans from another universe over to mine danks to a spell gone wrong-"

"A spell? A _magic _spell? That's what happened to us? Now I've heard and been through it all," Ann muttered. Of course, in a fairytale world of speaking, sapient animals, it wasn't all that shocking that magic could hold sway here too.

Ignoring her, Rafiki went on "-and now both have been mauled by a leopard, one so badly that he'll _die _if he is not treated-and everyone will likely be doomed demselves if dat happens!"

The German doctor stared at the two monkeys before switching his gaze to Ann herself and Jack's torn, bleeding body. There was a hesitant, weighted moment before he replied, "What you have allowed to happen is extremely stupid Rafiki, you know that. And if we accept him, and he dies anyway, then I too, will have done a vastly stupid thing."

The skirling, coyote voice came once more, from some place to the right of what Ann could manage to see through the ellipse. "Doctor Schuler, it is our solemn duty to assist _all_ those who are in distress, whether they're friends or foes, of no real account or a profound liability! Remember during the Eltan Empire war?" the voice chided, Ann now thinking it was likely from a female entity. "And seconds count!"

"That's right!" Ann added fervently. "How about if nobody allows Jack to die _any_where and starts helping us-_now_," she demanded, voice transforming into a drawn-out growl on the last word.

Standing upright, Doctor Schuler reluctantly sighed, looked Rafiki in the eyes, and said evenly, "Get them both over here. We'll take good care of them."

In an instant, the mandrill turned, stood, and made a flicking, flailing motion with his staff in Ann's direction. The inconceivable, mind-boggling portal flipped over 90 degrees, becoming a thick discus of chaos, which steadily ascended until it was about seven feet above where the greenheart's trunk divided into boughs.

It still continued to glow, a luminous green, just like one of the unearthly deep-sea fish that Professor William Beebe had seen out through the window of his bathysphere off Bermuda. Quite suddenly, as she continued to stare in pure fascination, it darted over to the actress and the shock-wracked playwright. Ann knew a brief moment of the jitters and an impulse to run before the ungraspable gateway plunged down over the pair like a sack being yanked over their heads.

Every limb quivering and knotted, Ann Darrow expressed her profound terror at the unknown, luminescent gateway she and Jack were being sent though with a wavering howl. Through it, Rafiki asked her one last urgent question.

"Miss Darrow, do you have any idea who sent dat leopard to kill de two of you, and why? And everyding will be okay."

"Yes. It was Scar Rafiki. And he did it because we saw him _murder_ poor Mufasa, and he couldn't let us live," she angrily, bitterly responded.

"No way! You poor things! Scar went _that_ fa-" Mganga started to gasp. But at that moment, her words, the entire tree, the night sky, the moonlight, and the entire African bush were swiftly sliced away from Ann's perception as if by some great butcher knife. Once more, there was that fleeting, disembodied feeling, of being embraced and infused with that Kelly green illumination, as if she and Jack had just been chucked into the Emerald City of Oz.

Then the former vaudeville actress and the senseless, mutilated playwright came down the rabbit hole-and as far as she was concerned, landed smack into a tale from the science fiction pulps.

* * *

You have now just encountered another Evil Cliffhanger(TM).

Jack's grim quip about Ann not having to tear her garments has to do with Jewish mourning traditions. Specifically, on first hearing the news of, or perhaps witnessing an individual's death, the family and good friends of the deceased-including the girlfriend or fiancee if male-immediately wail and rip their clothing as a sign of grief.

The Perils of Pauline was a silent movie series from 1914 that featured a hapless chick by the name of Pearl White, who according to the plot, had inherited a grand sum of money. Because of this, bad guys were always trying to bump her off, and poor Pearl would find herself being menaced by various villians, Indians, shot at, hanging off a cliff, etc, until some heroic type showed up to save her butt. And you know that cartoon cliche of some innocent blond tied to the train tracks, writhing as the horn blasts become ever louder? Yep, it all began with Pauline.

Jack's suspiscious, even dowright hostile, response toward Rafiki's not-entirely-alturistic offer of assistance might seem hard to swallow. However, remember that he is in agonizing pain and also fully understands that he is utterly incapable of protecting Ann anymore.

Last but not at all least, the completion of this chapter means that _FINALLY_, after around a year and a half, we've reached the conclusion of this fanfic's "1st" act! On with the second at the next one!


	29. An Out Of This World Facility

**I very profusely apologize to my readers for taking SO freaking long to update. As I said in the notes to my last chapter though, I do feel that a good break was well-deserved after completing the first act. On top of that, I had-and am still having-a difficult time developing an outline for this part of the story, although I'm happily turning the corner with that problem. Another thing that gave me a hard time was that I decided to have Jack and Ann be "treated" at the interstellar hospital which is the focus of the Sector 12 General Hospital books, a science fiction series written by Irish author James White. Unfortunately, the two or three books that I did read from the series, I read WAY back in high school, and belonged to the school library, meaning that I now only have sketchy memories and whatever information I can find on the Internet to base these next few chapters on. Last but definitely not least, my knowledge of medicine and nursing is woefully lacking-which is truly pathetic, considering that my mom's been a nurse my entire life and my sister is studying to be one! So I had to spend a lot of time doing research that made my head spin for this chapter and the upcoming one.**

**Anyhow, at least we can pick up where we left off once more after four months in limbo. **

* * *

"Jack fell down/ and broke his crown/ and Jill came tumbling after…" _Jack and Jill_, Traditional nursery rhyme.

"It may be that occult transportations of human beings do occur…" Charles Fort, _Lo__,_ 1932.

"But the most likely outcome of contact with an extraterrestrial species would be absolute terror." Michael Crichton, _Sphere_, 1987.

The scent of antiseptics and latex replaced the smells of decaying leaves and monkey houses as the green and tan flood of light disappeared, and Ann found herself, still kneeling at Jack's side, in what she recognized as a hospital-more or less. But it was a hospital with technology more advanced and inexplicable than any she'd encountered in her life. She had no idea what to make of it.

Nor did her feebly grasping, uncomprehending mind know what to make of the extraordinary _beings_ coming forward. There were three obvious humans-the man who called himself Dr. Schuler, a taller, muscular black woman with her slightly frizzy black hair in a ponytail, and a young Oriental man in glasses, all dressed in pale green surgical uniforms and forming a loose triangle with their fantastic companions.

Fantastic only began to describe these escapees from a Salvador Dali painting. There was one, stocky and about half Jack's height, resembling an animated teddy bear covered in short, curly, copper-red fur, with seven fingers on each hand. There was yet another one that looked like a rearing, six-foot caterpillar, with the tail and face of a storybook fox. It had four "arms," each bearing a hand with four digits, and stood on four thick, short, and padded legs, very much like the feet of a rhino. The creature's coat was thick and striped like that of a zebra, the stripes further accented by what appeared to be a red ochre dye. Another Barsoomesque creature looked very much like the zebra-striped one, yet was noticeably larger with a solid-colored tan coat, four retractable eyestalks, two dozen pairs of legs-and most curious of all, _two_ separate mouths.

A shrill, piercing, glassy scream erupted from Ann's throat. As it had been so often over the previous five days, her first impulse was to flee, but the sheeting agony along her ribs and across her lower spine brought her up short. Not that it would've mattered anyway, with the rapid way in which the three people rushed forward to considerately yet securely restrain her.

"Mam, do not panic. I know you're anxious and upset, but you'll aggravate your injuries even more if you do so," Dr. Schuler levelly urged her.

Latching on to the only other beings that made sense besides Jack, all burgundy red and ash gray under the remorselessly revealing interior lighting, she squealed fearfully, agitatedly at the other three members of her species, "What the hell are these crazy things!"

The double-mouthed eyestalked beast leading, the three Martians-for that was the only way that Ann knew how to categorize them-came forward, hands half spread out with palms facing her, evidently to display that they intended no harm. Indeed, this occurred to a distant, objective part of Ann Darrow.

Nonetheless, a creature that is wounded, completely disoriented, has never seen anything like the potential helper, and standing by its critically wounded mate can't be relied upon to recognize-much less accept- altruistic intent, even if they be human. The approach of the Martians simply made Ann's panic and agitation steeper.

She found herself starting to feel lightheaded again. _No, no, you're NOT going to faint. You're not going to do anything that-that-that **girly** ever again, especially when Jack needs you. Do you hear me Ann Darrow?_

_Girly? _another part of her chided in astonishment. _If Jack Sharkey was in my place, looking at these **things**, he'd tip backward too!_

"Get away from us damn it! You monsters touch him and there'll be hell to pay!" she yelled out at them in wild, flaring fear, her slender disheveled form still partly arched over the even more worse for wear writer's. She'd always had a slight overbite, but although Ann wasn't aware of it, all of her front teeth were now bared in a stark grin of panicked dread. It helped induce the three entities-should she think of them as freakazoids, like that one hyena, Shenzi, probably would?- to draw back involuntarily, impressed by her ferocity, and she was privately pleased.

"Mam, it's okay, they're not going to further harm your companion or hurt you either," the Negress nurse, wearing a badge with the name Michelle Osten printed on it, levelly replied, gesturing downward with the palms of her hands in an attempt to soothe the actress.

"Applesauce!" Ann defiantly shot back, as she tried to leap to her feet, only to be brought down cringing once more by the crimson, cringing agony from Nduli's double clawing. That was the least of her concerns right now though. Pointing at the double mouthed caterpillar thing with one graceful, blood-smeared hand as she pressed her side with the other, the memory of the colossal centipede too vivid in her mind, she snapped, "Last time I saw something that looked like that _monster_, it put its feelers right in my _mouth_ while its pal was getting ready to inject poison into my heart!"

The creature's fur rippled in a different way than before, and Ann thought she actually heard it _mutter_, "I beg your pardon lady," but her deep trepidation masked it too much for her to positively tell for certain.

"Mam, calm down," Michelle earnestly, encouragingly continued. "_Calm down_, _**please**__. _Notwithstanding what misfortunes you've experienced with similar-looking organisms, our fellow colleagues are rational, decent-hearted beings, all of them members of _herbivore_ species at that. They aren't monsters or beasts, but are nurses and doctors just like us. We want to help you and save your…?." The sentence slid off into the air and floated in place like a feather.

Warily, she opened the locked trunk a little. "Boyfriend," Ann supplied, still unwilling to give them Jack's name just yet. "My boyfriend. And can I truly trust you-trust them?" she said, her query an intensifying, strained cry.

The sheer cumulative _**madness**_ of the past four days finally came smashing down on her in all its entirety then, like a railroad car's worth of bricks, and she pressed her petite hands against her temples, tears starting to shine in her cobalt eyes as she despairingly gasped, "Can I even trust my senses anymore! Can I even trust myself that I'm still sane and tethered to reality, that I'm not utterly losing my mind? How do I know that I'm not going to suddenly wake up in a hospital _myself_, out of a two, three, four month long coma that came about after some piece of board or chunk of concrete fell off a building and bonked _me_ on my pretty blond head?"

"Mam, for what it's worth to you, I can assure you that this is very real," Michelle said, tone smooth and reassuring. Ann wasn't buying it.

"Tell it to Sweeny, delirium among a host of deliriums!" the stage actress responded with pert, pointed skepticism. With a sudden air of meditative wryness, she softly whispered, "Heh, you know, my Uncle Steve was a heavy drinker, and he had the DTs with regularity. Well, I think this beats those rattlesnakes coming out of the closet, maggots under his skin, and dancing orange buffalo that he'd see _to hell_, if you ask me," she put forth, giving a mirthless little chuckle. "You don't have crazy visions by halves, do you Ann Darrow!" she giggled to herself.

"Mam, you are certainly not suffering hallucinations from excessive alcohol or drug abuse-and as doctors we should know. This is very much the here and now, despite what you may feel. Is there anything we can do to make you more confident of that?" Dr. Schuler politely asked. His talk was the spitting image of Indlovu's.

"If so, then you could answer my first question for starters: _What are these things_?" Ann weakly told him, an attack of the nerves making her body begin to vibrate. "Oh God, I truly can't take this anymore!" This was too much for anyone to expect her to be able to handle!

"Guess you'd best fill the poor lady in yourselves pals," the doctor said to them with a nod of his head.

The caterpillar thing with the two mouths spoke first. What came out of its topmost one was a strange combination of hoots, whistles, and trills, accompanied by the creature's fur shifting and flowing like a field of grass on a windy day. Several moments later, a surprised, bemused Ann heard a neutral, matter-of-fact male voice come from several discreet speakers in the room. The voice had a distinct crackling, electric, overall aspect to it, and Ann had the impression that some incredible piece of technology was somehow reading and translating the creature's spoken words, then broadcasting the results just to this particular room.

"I am Doctor Morroyap, a member of the Kelgian species," the double-mouthed caterpillar thing answered.

"I'm Nurse Lidivug-Hurog, a Nidian," the curly-haired teddy bear creature responded in the gently keening, childlike voice she'd heard through Rafiki's portal over a pleasant mixture of chuffs, trills, and hums. It seemed female.

"I'm Nurse Gwarb, a Dwerlan," the fox-faced rearing alien agitatedly informed her in that skirling tone over a native tongue that sounded very much like-well, like the cries of a fox.

Blinking, Ann gazed back and forth between them, stupefied and confused as her mind scrabbled to even start to come to grips with the weird creatures, their weird species names, and bizarre titles, none of which really meant much of anything to her.

One part of her wanted to trust them. They seemed polite and peaceful enough.

The other wanted to promptly run like the wind and not look back.

Maybe, just like on Skull Island and in the Pridelands, the wisest action here was, as before, to simply follow the path of least resistance and go along with it. _I wonder just how deep I'm going to fall down the rabbit hole before this insanity finally plays itself out, _she thought, taking a deep, meditative breath as she regarded the far sides of her eyelids for several seconds. _If it ever plays itself out!_ It wasn't exactly a downhill battle.

Meanwhile, the Oriental, his own badge revealing his name to be Aaron Zhong, had pulled out some type of communicating device out of his pocket and was proclaiming, "Emergency staff, this is a Code 2569! Yes, I know it's been a few blue moons," he added. "We have a _critically_ wounded, unconscious adult male DBDG from that neck of the multiverse, and a mildly wounded, fully conscious and ambulatory adult female, also in classification DBDG. Still, we'll need two stretchers. Pull out all the stops with this one and **pray** a little for good measure!"

"At least we're dealing with the species we know the best, and this isn't one of those cases where we have no clue what the patient even _is_-not to mention how to diagnose and heal him like the Blind One or the Rollers," Dr. William Schuler muttered with wary optimism, kneeling down at the playwright's left shoulder and feeling under his blocky jaw for a pulse as Ann mincingly shuffled backward to accommodate the physician, hypnotized by both the Martian beasts and the gruesome, linear, red-yellow pointillist work she was involuntarily making on the cream linoleum floor with drops of her own blood and urine. Cocking his head, he then placed his ear close to Jack's lips. "He's still taking in air at least, and his windpipe isn't blocked or compromised."

"But oh God, is he in a _bad_ state," Michelle choked out, squatting down to pick up Jack's limp legs by the calves and raising them off the blood-smeared floor, allowing what still remained in his body to flow down into his trunk and vital organs. "Severe hypovolameic shock, an evisceration, extensive deep lacerations…and a collapsed lung on top of that!"

_Horribly severe_, Ann thought, for she could plainly see now how Jack's fingernails and lips had taken on a lapis lazuli tint to them, and his normally russet skin was as pale and clammy with sweat as soaked wood ashes. A dreadful wheezing, sucking sound came from the deep quadruple fang marks in the left side of his ribcage, expanding far less noticeably than the right side at each straining breath.

"Definitely a Class III hemorrhage," Zhong pronounced. (A Class III hemorrhage is when an injured person has lost between 30 to 40 percent of their total blood volume. It would later be estimated that Jack had lost 37 percent.)

"Mam, do you know what caused these injuries to you and your boyfriend?" Dr. Schuler inquired of her.

"A leopard did it," she replied, bitterness welling up within her at the thought of Nduli and by extension Scar. "He intended to kill Jack by torture before dealing with me, from what I can figure out, then do the same to me I suppose. I took my licks when I got in his way."

"Well, you're a very brave woman then mam, and we'll try very hard to make sure th-"

Abruptly, there was a rapid series of pounding footfalls off to Ann Darrow's right, and, head swiveling, she saw another small group of humans and Martian _creatures_ rushing down a corridor at them. There was another Dwerlan, its stripes forming a different pattern than Nurse Gwarb's and accented with a light caramel dye. Two more humans were in the convoy, along with something that looked to her like a cross between a giant pear and one of the Indian rhinos at the Central Park Zoo, except it was 2 tons in weight, had no mouth, lidless eyes, and knuckle-walked like Kong on six thick tentacles, a being that resembled an anthropomorphic, three-legged cock pheasant, but didn't have the long tail feathers, and a female being that certainly _seemed_ like a human brunette in umpteen ways-yet had some vague, intangible quality about her that gave Ann the impression this wasn't exactly the case.

What gave her the biggest shock though, were the pair of conveyances meant to transport her and Jack to surgery. During the time when the Great War had been raging in Europe, Ann had seen pictures in the paper-and newsreel footage at what few movies she could afford to attend or someone would graciously treat her to-of injured soldiers being carted off the battlefield in canvas stretchers held between two people.

Those were what she'd expected to see. These "stretchers" though, were more like great elliptical litters, with padded restraints and snap-down, transparent canopies. One of them, which she assumed was meant for Jack, had a sort of short vertical pole from which a transparent plastic bag hung, filled with a solution that she figured was saline and meant to be administered through a catheter. Weirdly, it was contained in a bag and not a glass bottle. On the other side, what Ann recognized to be a tank of oxygen was fastened to the gurney. There was also a large pillow at its foot, surrounded by plastic-wrapped packages.

But the most mind-boggling thing of all, something she just _could not_ manage to get her head around, was that _no one at all_, human or extraterrestrial, was actively supporting them. Each one was merely being pulled along and steered by two staff members.

"My God, they're floating in midair!" Ann shouted in astonishment. "How can they _possibly_ do that?"

"That they are," Nurse Lidivug responded through the translator, nodding. "Anti-gravity superconductor technology is an amazing thing, isn't it?"

"You bet it's amazing. And like something out of the Wizard of Oz!" Ann marveled. _My God in Heaven, what sort of place is this? And that teddy-bear thing takes it as just a matter of course!_

On arriving, staring at a frozen Ann and Jack with its great lidless snake eyes, the knuckle-walking pear-rhino creature extended one of its tentacles to reveal a cluster of eight digits, using one of them to jab a green button on the front edge of the litter. Scarcely trusting her eyes, Ann gaped as the gurney descended with a soothing, mechanical hum, then came to rest. _I can't believe this!_

A human paramedic, bearded and wearing spectacles, pressed a sort of release mechanism at the junction between the clear canopy and stretcher, causing the former to purposefully recede backward. The new Dwerlan, meanwhile, brought what Ann figured to be Jack's intended litter, the one with the saline, down to the floor in the same manner, as the pheasantlike being opened it up in its turn.

Suddenly, as if the playwright somehow unconsciously sensed that it was wiser to get it over with here in the open rather than in the confines of the floating gurney, his belly and throat heaved in an almighty spasm. Knowing precisely what was coming, Lidivug seized Jack's head between her seven-fingered hands and turned it to the left as the dying writer vomited, a white-beige burst laced with bright red forming a clotted fan as it sheeted out upon the floor. Champagne bubbles gleamed and spangled among the expelled blood, further pointing to an unambiguous lung injury.

It transfixed Ann with disgusted, despairing horror as the Nidian and Doctor Schuler carefully but speedily picked Jack's inert form off the floor, heedless of the blood, and deposited him in the stretcher, Lidivug slinging the writer's legs up onto the pillow. Doctor Zhong took a plastic cap off a needle at the end of the IV line and smoothly inserted it into a vein in Jack's left forearm, affixing it in place with a piece of surgical tape as the life-saving saline began to enter his drained body. Michelle tore open one of the several packages that contained a large square of sterile gauze, and the bearded Danish paramedic, his nametag reading Jerome Droscher, snatched it up, pressing it hard against the shredded side of the playwright's scalp.

The woman who Ann sensed was a facsimile of a female human, her nametag announcing her identity to be Aflan Suyla, gestured at the vaudeville actress to get into her own gurney. But Ann Darrow hesitated. She felt rooted to the floor all of a sudden, as if her legs had been transformed into granite while she kept staring at Jack in his litter. An oxygen mask now embraced his Mayanesque face, and Jerome forcefully pressed a black button on the stretcher, bringing it back up to its previous waist-high floating position. Except for the pheasant thing, everyone was pressing a pad of gauze down on where the bleeding was particularly awful.

She wanted so badly to stay with him and help him, more than anything else in the world-well, so to speak. How could she leave her Jack of Hearts at death's door and totally vulnerable, at the mercy of these alien, terrifying, unknown monsters? Would she ever see him alive again? This was ten, twenty times more difficult a decision for her than when she'd first set her graceful right foot on the Venture's gangplank almost seven weeks ago. Like a frenzied chimpanzee does, hair bristling, the desperate, paranoid little voice in her mind and soul was bouncing up and down as it veritably **shrieked**, _He's going away, he's going away, he's going away, __**EVERYBODY**__** GOES AWAY!**_

Loyal sentimentality and pragmatic sensibility. The members of this dichotomy are vastly powerful forces, particularly when they are actively at war within the person faced with crisis, and to claim to know which one shall trump the other in an occasion of stress is arrogance. Yet when push comes to shove, self-preservation is admittedly also the first, golden imperative for every living being.

"Please get in the gurney mam," Aflan gently yet neutrally commanded in fluent English. "We'll do everything possible to save your friend. You have to worry about your own wellbeing now."

Ann's blinkers met Aflan's mysterious green-gray ones for a second or so before longingly turning to travel down the hallway with Jack's retreating stretcher, then veering down to her own. Her love, in a double sense of the word, was doomed-but yet it wasn't doomed. She was right.

And the vaudeville actress still remembered the parting words of her beloved Manfred Jettweiler, urging and encouraging that she had to look out for herself now. Plus, she'd read enough magazine articles about botched big-game hunts to know that with big cats, even superficial claw wounds are almost certain to result in rapid infection.

Jack was in the best circumstances he could be, with excellent and apparently trustworthy surgeons who'd take sterling care of him. The rest was up to the Lord alone.

Still, as Ann, her own lips compressed, spine and torn flesh throbbing while she gingerly, mincingly reclined on the stretcher and felt a curious sensation, similar to riding a Ferris wheel, as the device rose four feet into the air, she ardently yelled out to Michelle Osten, tearing down the hallway on Doctor Zhong's heels, "Whatever you do, don't let Jack die! Don't you _dare let him die_!"

The Negress nurse flashed around for a few moments. Just like Rafiki, her eyes and demeanor seemed unaccountably, guitar-string tense as she ran past.

"Mam, for the sake of everyone and existence_ itself_, we **CAN'T** let him die!"

"What?" Ann said to both herself and the nurse, eyes wide with puzzlement. She wanted to ask more, but by that time, Michelle was already around a hallway corner and gone. "For the sake of _everyone_? What in the world was she even _talking_ about?" Ann asked of Aflan, blinking in abject confusion and mounting unease.

"It's best that you don't know, believe me," the woman who wasn't quite a woman panted out, steering the litter from behind as the pear-rhino thing led it along. "Be_lieve _me."

"And if it comes to pass…then the answer is likely not to matter anymore," Nurse Gwarb added.

Ann Darrow gritted her teeth with frustration and hurt. "Not matter? Please, why is everybody keeping secrets from me?" she implored.

But then the extraordinary beings that coexisted and healed together in this mad, mad hospital pelted her with a barrage of questions themselves, sabotaging Ann's train of thought as the Dwerlan jotted down her responses on the run. The actress knew full well that they were doing this in large measure to be evasive, and it made her distinctly sore. But she soon allowed herself to be distracted and fall into the rhythm of the queries.

"Mam, what is your full name?"

"Ann Marquadt Darrow."

"What is Jack's full name, if you know it?"

"Jack Goralski Driscoll."

"Okay, good. Did he speak to you at any time after the mauling?"

"Oh, absolutely."

"Very encouraging," Gwarb said, more to herself than her patient. "How old are you Ann?"

"Twenty-nine. And _yes_," she added, "I know that I seem older, but I'm being square with you all about my age."

"Date of birth?"

"September 16th, 1904."

"Wait a moment, _**1904?**_…Holy bananas, that means you come-or maybe more like originate-from 1933!"

"What was that baboon doing?"

"Oh boy, she'sgoing to be suffering _major_ cultural and temporal shock over here in our particular part of the multiverse," the crazy pear-rhino thing sighed to a woman nurse, its translated voice seeming to indicate femininity. Due to the way the rooster comb on "her" head noticeably vibrated and quivered in distinct patterns, Ann deduced with astonishment that the being was using the fleshy outgrowth to communicate in lieu of a mouth!

"To say nothing of our technology."

"Whatever _that_ is, or what your machines are like, I think I'm already experiencing it," Ann replied miserably, brain reeling and groping in futility as they turned a corner and guided her own litter into a sort of elevator. Aflan brutally jabbed the button that would take the blond actress up into a whole different sort of theater.

She was surprised at how swift and how smooth the ride was. It's not every day, after all, that you get to ride an elevator that operates on anti-gravity principles.

* * *

**As a note, Barsoom is the name that the inhabitants of Mars call their planet in the Martian Chronicles series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan books. Science fiction writing was also kind of in its toddler years in the '30s, and authors seldom went much farther out into space than Neptune for the scenarios in their tales-demonstrating a particular affinity of course, for the Red Planet. So it's very likely that Ann would use that concept as a frame of reference in regards to any extraterrestial being. **

**Also, I need to come clean with my fans. I want to say first of all, that I am extremely appreciative of each and every review you take the time out of your day to write. However, I am also here on this site to become a more accomplished writer. At the risk of being mistaken for being ungrateful, many of the reviews I am getting are not all that in-depth. It's not enough for me now just to know that my writing is good or pleasing or awesome, I want to know HOW and WHY is it good or pleasing or awesome! I want to know if something made you feel strongly, if something made you laugh, what you didn't know before, what made you scared, what you thought was sweet, what descriptions you found to be beautiful-or maybe too much. **

**In short, I'd like to know some more details from you reviewers, so I can know how to write even BETTER and get a better grasp of/share the enjoyment each chapter brings to YOU! **


	30. Lifeblood

#staggers in clutching sheaf of paper in hand, flops down on handy beanbag chair in posture of severe exhaustion, quivering as a blue moon rises in the background#

Ugh. What a total CHORE this chapter was. I am **_SO_** sorry on **_SO_** many levels to have kept you good readers waiting, waiting, and waiting some more for another installment. Again though, I don't know all that much about emergency medicine, and have basically had to give myself a crash course on the subject while doing my researching in order to make scenes like these realistic. There's a huge difference though, between simply reading text on the Net or from a book, and actually having it _click_ in your poor little vapid brain. Plus, all the jargon and complicated terms used in medicine are the sort of thing that **will** make your eyes glaze over and leave you feeling as dumb as a toad if you aren't familiar with it-like yours truly. So I had to come to grips with these words and concepts too. And then you have to be aware of what would be the first, biggest priority to attend to in this particular type of tramua situation, exactly what steps a doctor would take and in what order they would be done, what staff are needed and what roles they specifically play. This is why it has taken me forever and a day to update, especially since your brain "gets" something when it's good and ready, not when you wish it could. But I finally believe I've come to grips well enough with all this totally alien information to write a realistic, factual, and compelling chapter. Oh, and assuming an actual medical professional ever reads this, if you find something inaccurate in this chapter's text, just understand that I worked my hardest at getting it right. I tried. I really did!

At any rate, I hope everyone enjoys this chapter. I also want to thank all my reviewers, whether older ones like **Rebbecca Ann **and **Maran Zelde**, or new blood like **Simbafan **and **roudyredd**. The next one won't take so long, I promise. :)

* * *

"So give them _BLOOD_, _BLOOD_/ gallons of the stuff/ give them all that they can drink and it will never be enough. So give them _BLOOD_, _BLOOD_, _BLLLOOOODDDD!_ / I'm the kind of human wreckage that you love!" _Blood_, by _My Chemical Romance_, 2006.

_The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command._ Alexander of Tralles, 525-605 A.D.

_No doctor is better than three_. German Proverb

The bag of saline spasmodically swung and bounced as the litter was sped along the hallways of Sector 12 General Hospital. Speeding alongside it was Paramedic Nucualts, of the Nallajim, his great muscled front leg pounding against the floor and pushing back as his back two swung forward. With his avian appearance, colorful plumage, and limited ability to fly, many Earth-humans compared him to the male gender of an Earth bird known as a "ring-necked pheasant."

Personally, Nucualts didn't agree. For one thing, pheasants had only two legs, not three. Their eyes too, were located on the _sides_ of their heads, instead of facing forward like his did. Nor did he have the bare, scarlet wattles. His legs were proportionately longer, more like a heron's, and his body less chunky.

He did have to acknowledge though, that there was one definite, and sometimes annoying, similarity in how both of their species lacked hands or manipulatory appendages of any sort. Still, his scalloped, rounded right wing had more than enough power to help hold Jack Driscoll's IV line securely in place as the Nallajim cock and his fellow paramedics tore down hallways and around corners to reach one of the hospital's several elevators.

On attaining the elevator, he broke away and jabbed the "Open" button with his long ivory bill like it had made a nasty comment about his hen, and the anti-gravity stretcher was hustled into the levitation lift as Nurse Lidivug punched in their desired level of DBDG. Both the human male and his presumed female had been teleported to level BBBB of the medical space station from their native section of the multiverse instead of arriving through the bottom level spaceport and reception area, so at least this time the trip to surgery wouldn't be as lengthy, Nucualts thought. It was only that the potential stakes of losing this patient who had been sent to-or dumped on them, however you looked at it-were so much higher than anything the staff had ever faced.

With all the horrid slicing wounds, the deep bites, and the way his clothing was liberally soaked with his blood, the Nallajim was secretly amazed that the patient hadn't yet reached that point where the only treatment option left was 12 hours in a crematorium. The nature of the wounds was quite consistent with an animal mauling, but he had no clue what sort of beast had caused them.

He spoke in the extremely fast-paced, clucking, croaking, peeping language of his kind, the massive tubular translating computer in the center of the cylindrical station transmitting, "By the gods, what type of creature shredded him like this?"

Surgical Assistant Xelatra the Dwerlan pitched in with his keening cry, commenting, "I was wondering the exact thing too."

"A leopard with a major sadistic streak, that's what," Dr. Schuler told them, his sonorous, buzzing human voice translated by the computer into each extraterrestrial's tongue.

"A leopard? I've never even heard of such an animal," Nucualts replied, confused.

"You don't remember the films and photos you've seen of Earth animals before Nucualts?" plump Jerome Droscher exclaimed in surprised puzzlement, even as he continued to bear down with the gauze on the male human's scalp.

"No," the Nallajim sheepishly replied.

"A leopard is a type of feline-a cat."

"Oh, like the species of small, non-sapient, warm-blooded carnivore you humans keep as pets," Xelatra commented.

"Exactly," Jerome said, "except that they're a really _big_ cat-about your size Nucualts-and extremely strong, with yellow fur covered in black, circular spots. They're also pure flesh eaters, just like the Wem used to be-at least until we taught them to accept and eat plant-based substitutes after they'd eaten most of their planet's prey animals," the Dane added, remembering the now legendary salvation of the kangaroo-like predators by Gurronsevas, a brilliant Huldar chef.

"Great," Xelatra moaned. "A wild carnivorous beast was what messed him up. And if I know _anything _about those types of life forms, this poor guy will have picked up a nice big bunch of bacteria on top of everything else too to maybe cause secondary infection."

"Both aerobic and anaerobic," Lidivug knowingly stated.

The levitation lift buzzed then to signify their arrival on DBDG level, the environment and surgical facilities of the section specially tailored for the physiology and anatomy of humans, Nidians, and other endothermic oxygen breathers. Many of the extraterrestrials playfully called it "Hominid Haven."

But this certainly wasn't the occasion for witticisms now. With more than a little alacrity, they hustled Jack's litter down the sterile cream hallway, around a corner to the left, and then jogged it two-thirds of the way down another long hallway to the nearest of DBDG level's two Level III trauma centers.

Bursting through the double doors, they flew to the trauma ward's resuscitation area like a dart, where Emergency Physician Aaron Zhong, now already fully prepped for surgery, was there to meet them.

"Come on, we're set up for him over in that bay," he announced, gesturing towards the third of five separate surgical bays. "Christ Jesus, I hope to God he doesn't die on us, and _especially_ that the theories of the astrophysicists don't prove to be correct if he does!" he said in a wiry intonation as he once more looked the male human over, even as he half-ran to the operating theater with the litter bearers.

Inside the compact room, standing anxiously around the stark, sterile, interrogation-lit operating table, stood the rest of the diverse trauma team; Senior Anesthesiologist Joaquin Cortez, Respiratory Therapist Meethra, the Illensan's shrublike, oily looking form faintly obscured by the green-yellow fog of chlorine within her loose, transparent survival suit, Imager Technician Mallafi the Eltan, looking very much like a muscular black-haired man, Charge Nurse Armareon the Nidian, Charge Nurse Cindy Hamilton, and Charge Nurse Segaard, a Kelgian.

Rounding out the ground team was Neurosurgeon Glarith, a female Tarlan. Seven feet tall, her conical chestnut body, tapering towards the head, was supported on four stocky, short legs. The quadratic body plan was continued in the four long arms that encircled her waist, muscular and multijointed for lifting and handling heavy or unwieldy objects. Four more arms sprouted around the base of her neck, slender and delicate like a frog's forelimbs for use in fine motor skills, and four eyes blinked on mid-length stalks, one on each side of the head. Cowlike nostrils hung over a mouth containing a set of impressively large, bladelike teeth.

Despite the fact that Jack belonged to a species that the team knew as well as the backs of their hands, such a vitally important surgery would not have been complete without Doctor Custavila, one of the insectile, empathetic Cinruss, perched on the ceiling, suspended by his sucker-tipped feet. Around 4 feet tall, his thorax and abdomen were encased in a knobby, fuchsia carapace, similar to a spider crab's, from which sprouted a pair of very un-crablike wings, resembling a luna moth's and brilliantly iridescent. Six legs, dark lavender and amazingly rickety, grew from the bottom of Custavila's thorax, terminating in a pea green foot with four sucker-tipped digits.

His head looked like a carnation pink cross between a giraffe's neck and a small Stonehenge monolith, bearing two great compound eyes on the sides with a third crowning the top, all as vividly green and sleek as emeralds. At a longitude straight between both sets was a beaklike mouth, surrounded by four more mainipulatory appendages, each around 10 inches long.

All in all, Doctor Custavila's appearance gave one the impression of a very spindly, very fragile, easily damaged being. It would be right on the money, for the Cinruss came from a planet with only 1/8 the gravity of Earth, and no member of his race went off world without an antigravity belt to prevent their delicate body from buckling and smashing under its own weight. He could literally be blown away by a strong wind, and indeed, any creature larger than a chicken constituted a significant physical threat to the rickety extraterrestrial.

Jack Driscoll had found it a horrifically difficult-and if it hadn't been for Jimmy and Englehorn, ultimately futile-struggle against the nightmarish giant wetas that had bitten and scratched him bloody. But if up against Custavilla, just a couple good sideway blows from the playwright's hand would've snapped all his legs like pretzel sticks, and a few punches would've reduced his body into a mass of hemolymph-leaking chitin shrapnel. Needless to say, it was probably just as well for the good doctor that Jack was senseless and the Cinruss was 8 feet above-even a reflexive movement on the New Yorker's part could cause real damage.

That would've been an awful thing to do to such a meek, deeply considerate, sensitive being-sensitive in more ways than one. For the Cinruss shared with all of his kind the ability to sense and read the emotions-but not thoughts-of any sentient or semi-sentient entity, even if they were unconscious. In short, he wasn't a telepath, but still a powerful empath.

And at the present moment, what Custavila was picking up from the playwright was making him tremble like a leaf.

"How's he doing, Custavila?" Joaquin gently inquired, swiftly preparing a 100 mg dose of pentobarbital and the same amount of ketamine to put their most exotic of human patients under general anesthesia.

A series of musical trills and dolphin clicks spilled out of Custavila's octopus beak.

"As you'd expect, not very well," the Cinruss replied in a quivering tone, affected to his nonexistent bones by the writer's subconscious feelings. "He isn't knowingly aware of it himself, but he still seems to understand at some deep, basic level that he's been taken away from his female. He also comprehends that he's close to termination, and headed there fast. He's in great despair, but I do get the impression he also won't go without a battle."

Custavila paused, and clutched himself with his front pair of legs, swaying in an effort to cope with the overwhelming sensations he was receiving. "No," he continued, "that's _definitely_ not in his nature!"

Nucualts was only half-listening, backing away toward the door along with Xelatra as Jerome and Lidivug steered the anti-gravity gurney to the foot of the operating table, then brought it to a position slightly above its level with the controls. Mallafi and Glarith grasped each of the writer's shoulders while Armareon and Bill supported him at each thigh, smoothly sliding both Jack and the now well-bloodied sheet he lay on onto the table.

Both the Nidian and Doctor Schuler then immediately loosened the laces of the dress shoes Jack had worn throughout his entire 96-hour ordeal and slipped them off. The socks, covered in grit, dust and humus, were hastily rolled down and away to reveal terribly sore-looking feet. Not for the first time, Nucualts wondered why humans had ever evolved to have such delicately skinned feet, and then had to go _compound_ the problem by wearing those silly artificial hooves over them. What they needed instead were tough scales like the ones that mailed his trio.

"My gods, what was being thrown into _his_ path to cause his feet to end up like that?" the computer broadcast over Meethra's dry, windy, rustling speech. "Not that human feet ever have that much to offer to the eyes anyhow," the Illensan pompously sniffed, looking down proudly at her yellow-green, stubby legs, covered with great oily-looking blisters that put the writer's most severe specimens to shame.

Nuculats saw Cindy's lips tighten in irritated offense at the remark, but she kept silent as she concentrated on slipping Jack's unbuttoned silk shirt up over his limp arms and head, placing it in the gurney along with his footwear. Carefully wielding a pair of sterilized scissors, she quickly cut his undershirt down the middle and removed it as Mallafi unbuckled Jack's belt and pulled it free. Armareon and Bill took charge of the pants and boxers even as Cortez took Jack's right hand and placed a pulse-reading clip on a lengthy index finger, leaving the playwright lying nude on the table. A rhythmic, but too wildly paced, beeping came from a station in the room. Typical shock symptom.

Jerome placed all Jack's gory, slaughterhouse rags of clothing and Rolex Oyster watch into the gurney, nodding to show that he understood as Zhong reminded him, "Remember, assuming that he lives, DO NOT discard _any_ of his clothing. And have someone repair what we had to cut off in the exact same weave."

"We don't want inconvenient questions and possible alienation to result when they get "put back" after all," Segaard chimed in as he removed the oxygen mask that Jack had had in the stretcher.

Meethra wisely used the mask's removal as an opportunity to do her job, reaching out with a stubby, plastic-sheathed arm and carefully pressing a tongue depressor up against the back of the roof of Jack's mouth. Even though he was deep in the ebony pit of unconsciousness, the Illesan's action generated the hoped-for response from Jack.

_GGRRAACCKK!_

"We've got a definite gag reflex," she said simply. "Suction tube Segaard?" she requested of the Kelgian. He proffered it to her, and she worked it down the New Yorker's windpipe, conducting a suction sweep to remove any mucus or blood before drawing it back out seconds later.

Not one to let dust collect around his many fleshy pads of feet, Segaard then handed Joaquin a plastic endotracheal tube, hooked up to the ICU ventilator permanently kept in the surgical bay.

"Wow, does this male _ever _have a huge nose!" the charge nurse commented with typical Kelgian tact while the human anesthesiologist, with all the delicate control of a seamstress threading a needle, fed the flexible tube up through the playwright's left nostril, into his sinuses, and then curved it downward, well into his windpipe.

"Definitely every bit as Jewish as I am Chinese," Zhong wryly muttered. "Okay folks, we'll take it from here-Bill, I'll only need you here with me," he said, indicating that Nuculats, Xelatra, and the other paramedics could leave. Sensible, despite the surgery bay's decent size. After all, Nucualt's mother had always told him and his brood-siblings that too many _queedins_ often only made a roost filthier, not cleaner.

"Best of luck Aaron," Xelatra wished him over her shoulder in her coyote voice as Nucualts strode to the doors and held one open with his strong wing so that his companions could get the floating gurney through.

"God, we'll need it," the trauma surgeon muttered. "Okay, we still getting saline into him? Controlling that bleeding? Good."

As the doors closed, Lidivug nervously sighed as they all headed away to the level's laundry facility, summing up everyone's feelings with "And the rest is now up to them-plus him." He wondered if they'd all disintegrate or be torn to pieces by a great tidal force or who knew what at any moment as a possible consequence of the human's death.

* * *

Despite the veneer of dust and dirt and bits of grass that covered the playwright's lanky sorrel body, there was no time to give the patient a full body scrub. Instead, Cindy and Armareon, bearing sponges drenched in chlorohexidene, rapidly cleaned out only the wounds themselves and the area immediately around them. Each was then flushed out further with a shot of warm saline.

Making himself useful-but wasn't that always the way with his accommodating race?-Custavilla left the wall he was perched on and took up a position about two meters directly above the casualty, dictating the results of his assessment into a staff-like recording device.

"Casualty is deeply unconscious and close to termination as a result of and suffering heavy blood loss with associated hypovolameic shock. Casualty's trunk, buttocks, thighs, and upper arms bear numerous deep, raking wounds that are composed of four or five parallel slashes, presumably caused by the claws of his attacker, and measure an average of 30 to 40 centimeters in length. Left calf, right forearm, and upper right portion of head have each sustained a single similar muscle wound. Abdomen of casualty exhibits particularly deep, slicing injury, about 40 centimeters long, which penetrates abdominal musculature and exposes internal viscera.

Casualty has also sustained several sets of 4 centimeter deep puncture wounds on body, apparently inflicted by attacker's canine teeth, located on left buttock, rear of left thigh, right buttock, and right shoulder. Especially serious is a bite wound to casualty's left flank, where attacker bit down with enough force to break three of victim's ribs in two different places and puncture left lung, collapsing it.

Nape of neck bears additional puncture wounds that barely penetrate subcutaneous tissue. Presumably, attacker intended to violently terminate casualty by crushing cervical vertebrae and/or severing spinal cord with its fanglike teeth, but was forcibly prevented from completing action. Skin also exhibits superficial, non-life threatening abrasions, bruising, and scratch marks that were most likely passively inflicted by terrain and/or vegetation while casualty attempted to overpower or break free from attacker."

As the Cinruss finished his assessment report and both nurses got done cleaning out Jack's wounds, Mallafi, with that imperial bearing all Eltans seemed to carry about them, strode forward with the bay's portable X-ray, mounted on a rolling cart. "Everyone back away for a few moments please," he said.

Aaron Zhong strode backwards, almost to the wall, watching as the Eltan went to work and Custavila returned to his previous position on the upper wall. First he took a large rectangle off the machine's tray, composed of lead foil sheathed in tough ivory plastic, and placed it on Jack's right. Pressing buttons on the machine's control panel, he took a digital X-ray scan of the left side of the chest. Mallafi then took two more X-rays, one from above, and one from the right side.

"And now it's time to see just how bad things are inside," he said matter-of-factly as he waited for the images to be processed and displayed on the computer's screen, moving the machine away.

Dr. Zhong returned with the others to the patient, acutely aware of the weak, intermittent beeps on the monitor as his fingers smoothly slid under and around the several exposed, gray-purple folds of Jack Driscoll's small intestine. Partly out of concern, partly to make conversation and take his mind off the sheer gravity of everything, he asked, "How's his airway Meethra? Still getting enough oxygen?"

The soft, scraping rustling came from inside the suit. "His airway's just fine, which really surprises me for an animal mauling." the Illensan replied. "You'd think it would be partially crushed or compressed," she pondered thoughtfully.

"The leopard that savaged him was from an Earth where animals are sentient, Meethra," Dr. Schuler offhandedly informed the plantlike alien as he donned his gloves and mask. "And according to his girlfriend, this particular one intended to torture kill him, draw it out."

"Good Dragnfar, the beast _tortured_ him? That is messed up beyond words!" Meethra announced in shocked incomprehension.

"That explains why there's no evidence of actual or possible damage to the cervical spine then," Armareon said in understanding.

"I'm not so sure that the cat didn't inflict some sort of traumatic brain injury before dying though," Zhong cautiously pointed out as he gestured with a flip of his hand to where the side of the writer's head had been sliced open by the leopard's terminal blow. "But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. From the bite marks in his ribs, I'm more worried that he has flail chest."

"We'll know for sure in a few minutes," Mallafi cut in from his station at the X-ray's computer.

Custavila's uneasy spasms became even more gripping. "Dr. Schuler's right," the Cinruss confirmed, voice quavering. "I am picking up on the human male's subconscious memories of the event right now in fact. They are not…pleasant viewing," he added, perhaps needlessly.

"I will never understand how a sentient being can be so evil as to deliberately inflict pain on one of its fellow creatures, just for the twisted pleasure of it," Segaard hooted, his bristles rippling in the manner that indicated combined disillusionment and fury.

"Nor I," Joaquin sighed, shaking his head. "But at least we can protect those survivors who come to us and put them back together."

"At any rate," the Illensan continued in the meantime, "his head is comfortably tilted back, tongue's out of the way. But something's _very _wrong with his lungs Aaron-I mean just look at that cyanosis in his lips and skin! You'd better get those guts back in quick and lungs back in shape even quicker," she dryly advised. Even as she spoke, the bushy being prodded the yellow button on the ventilator's body that put it into Assist Control mode (In this mode, the machine would provide a mechanical breath for Jack Driscoll with a preset volume every time he began to take one), and set the designated volume at 996 mL for each release.

"I agree. Still, there's a risk that more of his intestines could slip out with all the handling and moving, so let's deal with that first. It won't take very long." The emergency physician slightly grimaced. He'd seen far worse many, _countless_, times before. Still, no matter how often you did it, he thought, you never could get totally accustomed to viewing body parts that weren't intended to see the light of day.

Bowel itself wasn't pierced though. The absence of the acid and shit reek that came with a lacerated gut confirmed that. One godsend at least.

"Dressings," he asked of Segaard, tone appropriately clinical. "And remember, the two usual types for a _human_ evisceration," Zhong added, looking up briefly.

The Kelgian's pelt rippled in a pattern that was the equivalent of nodding in a human as he turned away. Within moments he was back, two types of dressing on a tray held in his first two pairs of tri-digit forelimbs.

"Thank you," the trauma surgeon responded in a monotone, swiftly yet carefully coating what parts of the playwright's hot entrails were outside with sheets of a sterile, warmed, film-based dressing, impregnated with powerful antiseptics and moistened in a pan of heated saline to guard against thermal shock. That done, he carefully yet firmly pushed the coils of small intestine back and downward with his latex-sheathed hand, back into their proper, Nature-assigned position in Jack's body cavity.

"Glarith, could you raise his legs up just a bit? Just at a light angle though," he specified.

"Certainly," the Tarlan conceded in her kind's lowing, groaning language. Zhong moved aside and to the right side of Jack's chest as the neurosurgeon came forward and took each of the limp writer's legs in her front pair of "waist arms," just below the calf muscles, carefully lifting up so that Jack's lower back had about eight inches of clearance between it and the operating table.

"Armareon, how 'bout you do the honors this time?" Dr. Zhong requested of the Nidian as he examined the foursome of penetrating fang marks in Jack's crunched ribcage, now thankfully covered by the bandages Michelle had applied. He most definitely didn't like what he saw, and especially what he heard.

As the Nidian charge nurse wound several feet of a more durable, silvery, tapelike dressing around Jack Driscoll's rent open abdomen, also impregnated with antiseptics in addition to a polysaccharide paste, the surgeon lightly tapped on the writer's chiseled chest, above the left lung. Zhong already knew very well that they'd have to insert a chest tube in order to suction out all the air from the cavity surrounding Jack's lung, so it could re-expand. A fairly simple procedure, but from the depth of the leopard's bite and the evident savagery with which the cat had bitten down, he suspected that their patient was facing an even more dire sort of respiratory trauma.

And the proof was in the terrible dull thud which answered him back, instead of the hollow, clear sound that assured all was well. Shit. Just as he'd feared. Thanks to the canine holes, Jack was suffering major hemothorax, or in other words, bleeding badly into his own right chest cavity. _Talk about icing on the cake_, he thought unhappily.

"Oh gosh, he's got at least two liters of blood around that lung," he commented. "Let's get a chest tube in him straight away and drain that out-Cindy, could you set up a collection bag or two in case we do an autotransfusion?"

"You sure that's safe with the bacteria in it Doctor Zhong?" Cindy asked doubtfully. "We could be encouraging blood poisoning."

"The blood filterer should take care of that problem just fine," Zhong assured her. "And remember, our guy here is 'native' to 1933, so he'll have all sorts of antibodies in his blood for bugs that no one on this station has been exposed to for at least 200 years. We don't want to completely clean _those_ out."

The Chinese surgeon paused momentarily, considering. "All the same though, it sure as hell wouldn't hurt to do a scan for his blood type. I have more than a sneaking feeling we'll be requiring quite a few units."

"Since I don't have bloody gloves at the moment, I'll do that right now," Joaquin volunteered, breaking away to fetch a rectangular device about the size of a snack cracker. On returning, he lightly pressed it on Jack's little finger, a short, concealed needle drawing a drop or two of what blood remained in the playwright's body, then analyzing it.

As the anesthesiologist stared, there was a beep, and a small liquid crystal display at the top read A+.

"A+," he informed his colleagues.

Zhong's fellow doctor needed no prompting. Swallowing the dreadful receptions he was reading from their patient's ebbing brain, Custavila allowed himself to drop from the ceiling, righted himself in midair, and flew to the juncture between two of the surgical bay's walls on those sparkling, fluttering fairy wings. Landing about two-thirds of the way up, the Cinruss straddled the V-joint and turned to face downward before extracting a sort of pager from a clip on his anti-gravity belt, resembling a narrow, glorified calculator covered with glowing diodes.

"DBDG Laboratory, this is Doctor Custavila up in surgery," the insectile alien fluted and clicked into the communicator. "We need at least five units of _human_ blood, type A+, from your blood bank. Remember, not Nidian, Eltan, or Orligian blood, but _human_," he emphasized. "Send it through the pneumatic route, stat," he added before ending the transmission.

Meanwhile, Mallafi had finished going through the extraordinarily clear images captured by the MRI, and swiftly printed the most crucial ones on X-ray film. "You're right Doctor Zhong," he confirmed. "This guy had four ribs snapped in two places like twigs from that bite, and there's a small _pond _of blood around his right lung."

No one needed prompting. While the surgeon focused on stitching up the worst of Jack's wounds, Doctor Schuler brought the autotransfusion machine over.

It was a tangled conglomeration of coiled silicone and plastic vines hanging and drooping from metal branches. At its center was a clear, sterile vessel that somewhat resembled the top portion of a very large blender, with several fixed inlet ports atop it. Directly below the vessel, and linked to it by a hole, was a second compartment, formed into a sort of widened bowl. Down inside the top compartment, extending two-thirds of the way down to the bottom, was a wide cylinder of white, ribbed fabric that resembled the centrifuge inside a cyclonic action vacuum cleaner, and served a similar purpose.

Taking one of the coils of sterile suction tubing that hung from a rail on the machine, Dr. Schuler removed the conical green cap covering one end of a Y-fork with a flick of his fingers, and plucked off the one on the second end equally quickly. Carefully, he firmly slid each end into a nozzle-like inlet on the lid of the clear vessel, known as a cardiotomy reservoir.

As Schuler did so, Zhong, utilizing his profuse knowledge of anatomy to almost "see" where the roof of Jack's thoracic cavity was, made a cut in the playwright's skin on the right side of his breastbone, and delicately slit down through the muscle between two ribs until reaching the crimson pool.

"He's all yours now Bill," he said while drawing back.

As Segaard commandeered the machine, Dr. Schuler stepped forward and fed the unbranched end down through the half-inch incision Zhong had created, down until it was nearly brushing the dorsal side of the chest cavity.

"Go," he requested simply, and the Kelgian charge nurse flipped the switch which activated the suction. A scarlet shaft shot into the silicone tube like it was a thermometer in an Arizona summer, curving and dipping on its journey to the reservoir, where it passed through a filter about the length and width of a cigar after passing into the inlet. The New Yorker's blood descended through a second filter in the centrifuge, and then was free, a horror movie waterfall trickling into the plastic canister.

As it filled, Glarith went to one of the cupboards, where she fetched a jar containing a kind of topical paste, then brought it to Armaeon and Cindy. When applied to a wound, the paste encouraged rapid clotting to prevent additional blood loss.

Taking care not to get it anywhere near the site where Dr. Schuler was suctioning out the internal blood pool and keeping an attentive eye on the filling reservoir, both the human and Nidian charge nurse anointed as many of the leopard's hacking claw wounds with the ivory paste as they could without having to log roll Jack, Zhong graciously assisting. Within around 45 seconds of being smeared in, the paste took on a rose tint, then set, and the blood stopped flowing.

The reservoir had filled up with around 600 mL of Jack's blood by now, and Schuler briskly told Segaard, "Prime it."

The Kelgian complied, pressing the 'prime' button on the machine after temporarily switching off the suction. The fabric centrifuge leapt into action, rotating clockwise at a speed of 5,600 times a minute. At the same time, the machine's master pump came on, rotating the reservoir counterclockwise and drawing the blood it contained into the bowl below.

As two opposing rotational forces worked within the machine on Jack's blood, the centrifugal force caused it to separate into different components, plasma above, white blood cells and platelets in the middle, and the precious red blood cells at the bottom. The layers became thicker and more defined, the dense red blood cells becoming so concentrated that they shrunk into, then perfectly filled, all 300 mL of the bowl, the white blood cells above just touching the edge.

Automatically, the centrifuge in the reservoir halted, while the master pump continued to spin counterclockwise. Now, saline solution began to flood into the gruesome collection bowl, binding to and removing plasma, white blood cells, platelets, enzymes, and active clotting factors, among other substances. The unwanted components flowed out from the top of the wash bowl and went down a tube into a big waste collecting bag, the contents creeping higher and higher as saline continued to empty into the centrifuge bowl

About a third of the way into this process, there was a knock at the doors of the surgery bay. Mallafi went over and opened them to be greeted by a Nidian intern, standing in front of a levitating personnel carrier and holding a big yellow plastic box.

"Here are the blood units you requested sir," the Nidian proffered in his kind's typical singsong voice.

"Thanks Dracwai," the Eltan radiographer said as he took the box in his arms. Bringing it over to the operating table, he put the box on one of the metal carts and opened the lid. Taking out one of the pre-warmed blood bags, the Eltan handed it to Joaquin, who disconnected the bag of saline from Jack's IV line, and then hitched the silicone tube to the translucent maroon sack now hanging in the saline's place. As if it was eager to play the role of savior, a welcome, dark red line swept down through the tube's coils, descending into a vein at the pit of Jack's elbow and spreading throughout his drained circulatory system.

During all this time, both the New Yorker's pulse and heart beat were being recorded on digital monitors. Initially racing and feeble, his pulse rate had shown some improvement as the saline was being administered, and now seemed to be reaching for a fragile stability as the first bag of A+ blood streamed through his veins and arteries.

His heart rate continued to tear along, a pump searching for something to work with, but also seemed to be responding a little to the fluids. Dr. Zhong though, like everyone else in the surgery, was too terribly aware of just how quickly the electronic chirps were still coming. _Slow and steady progress thou-_

Suddenly then, wild with desperate terror, Dr. Custavilla's voice sliced through the air from above, a drawn-out clarinet screech. "Oh no, he's terminating! He's failing!" Indeed, as the insectoid Cinruss convulsed, spreading his lavender legs out to firmly press his body against the ceiling, fiercely drawing breath himself now in his panicked, upset state, the bottom fell out then on Jack's physical condition. To Zhong's encompassing horror, Jack Driscoll's heartbeat flatlined on the cardiac monitor, the hopeful pattern of beeps subsumed by an electronic chalkboard screech. And then, like a broken elevator that takes its helpless occupants down into oblivion along with it, the bottom began to fall out of space-time itself as Jack released his grip on life.

There was only one thing that could be done to bring the patient back, Aaron Zhong knew, and he dove for the device even as existence itself split and dissolved around him, white and black masses of nothingness taking its place.

* * *

Yeah, I think MCR is awesome! This Evil Cliffhanger has been brought to you by the letter N, for Nate.


	31. From The Jaws of Defeat

***walks in all embarrased* All I can say is that I'm sorry as can be guys. I took on something I was very ill-equipped for in terms of knowledge with this surgery scene, and it turned into a total tar pit that I got mired in. Life and its real world obligations too, got in the way. Still, to keep everyone hanging for so long-almost a year!-is inexcusable, and I'm just sorry. Certainly, I hope you'll find this chapter worth the wait!******

* * *

"_Mors certa, vita incerta." _Translation from Latin: _"Death is certain, life is not."_

"…_I did what I could to reassemble the jigsaw puzzle of torn flesh."_ Peter Capstick, _Death in the Dark Continent_, 1983.

"_During the primary survey, the physician identifies and controls serious sources of bleeding. Even soft-tissue and musculoskeletal injuries can involve major vessels and can cause life-threatening bleeding."_ Chat Dang and Eric Schultz, _The Polytraumatized Patient_, 2009, **emedicine.**

Cardiac arrest is one of the absolute worst complications that can happen to a patient in surgery. It is not at all like a heart attack, in which the flow of blood to the heart suddenly becomes blocked, but the heart continues to beat. Instead, as if some grim switch has been flipped, the person's heart simply quits.

Even if he or she is in prime condition and receives excellent medical help within minutes, a victim has only a 14 to 20 percent chance of pulling through. Furthermore, during every minute the patient is in that state, their chances diminish by 10 percent.

These horrid statistics slashed through Zhong's head as he leapt for the defibrillator. Around him, rifts were opening up in the fabric of creation itself. Air in the room began to whoosh into them like a storm, taking all sorts of smaller objects with it. The floor began to twist and warp like molten rock, terrazzo tile and concrete flowing into the black and cream nothingness like molasses from a bottle. The main rift, not surprisingly, was right under the expired playwright's bed, jabbing down into the entire star station and broadening by the second like a knife sinking into flesh.

Around him, and in rooms both below and above, humans and extraterrestrials alike cried out in their respective expressions of alarm.

Zhong's knowledge of astrophysics was fairly marginal, but he dimly remembered some things about it from classes he'd taken in college, and "floating through space" with some of the universes most brilliant experts in the field. According to what was known as the drinking straw theory, it was possible to not just form a wormhole between two parts of the multiverse, but keep it open and rigid for a length of time-exactly how long, no one could say. This made it possible not just for inanimate objects, but even large lifeforms to take a sort of "vacation," as it were, to a universe outside their natal one, where, in theory, they'd disappear and reappear in the same instant. To have a living being successfully inhabit and act on at least two different universes at once was a paradox which understandably stretched rational belief. But, as the thought experiments of Schrodinger's cat and the double-slit diffraction experiments demonstrated, this quantum multiverse loved paradoxes like a Cinruss loved pasta.

There was a limit though, to how profound a paradox the system could tolerate.

And to have someone die _in _one universe, when they were actually _from _another, was a scenario that grossly violated those parameters, with consequences that could merely destroy much of Sector 12 hospital and its residents before petering out-or completely obliterate two or more universes.

Pill canisters, surgical instruments, metal pans, sponges, spray bottles, unopened gloves, and other loose objects flew and swirled through the air like smashed boards and sheetrock in a tornado, buffeting, bruising, and cutting Aaron as he fought to keep his stability. As he tore open a silver foil packet, he heard Custavilla uttering grating, chalkboard screams of agony, his delicate lavender legs snapping like old branches under the force of the suction, and heard Joaquin cry out as a flying scalpel slashed him deep across his upper arm.

He had no choice but to _concentrate_!

Arching over Jack's torn chest, Zhong plucked an adhesive electrode, resembling a sky blue, rectangular mousepad, from the packet. Fiercely, he ripped off the backing, exposing the wet gel on the electrode's bottom, and slapped it on the writer's right breast, just below the clavicle. A steel pan crashed hard into his lower back, but Zhong brushed the pain aside as he stripped the second wet-gel electrode of its plastic backing and pressed it to Jack's left flank, above the dressing and just below the chest muscle. He forced himself to ignore Meethra's desperate gasping as her suit was torn asunder and sickly, lethal chlorine gas began to billow out, most of it flowing into the rift, while he reached back to grab the defibrillator's bifurcated lead, and fed each end of the V into its separate electrode.

Then, fighting the tidal forces like a mad thing, like a feral dog straining against a catch pole, he pushed himself backward to the machine's console and bellowed, "CLEAR!!!" before giving Jack a jolt of juice through his chest. The New Yorker's lean body bucked on the table, like a fish giving one final, feeble flop at the electric charge. But no peaks showed up on the ECG! Jesus Christ, their last chance, and it wasn't working!

Turning up the voltage a prudent amount, Aaron Zhong zapped Driscoll a second time. Once more, the playwright's form jerked like he'd been shot. For a few long, inexpressibly horrible moments, the surgeon thought he'd struck out a second time too. Suddenly, something extraordinary happened. A sound that was music to Zhong's ears came from the cardiac monitors.

They were beeps, rhythmic, steady beeps. On the ECG, he saw peaks show up again, peaks of a heart once more pulsing and contracting-and it was decreasing to below a rate of 100 beats a minute, sliding back to the range where it belonged! The electric shocks, the saline, the blood, the oxygen, it had all come together in the nick of time to get Jack's natural pacemaker, the sinoatrial node in the right atrium of his heart, back on track.

A moment later, the trauma surgeon witnessed something even more astonishing and gratifying happen inside the surgery bay. The consuming, powerful, implacable rifts and vortexes of black nothingness all sealed up with a squeaking, rubbery sound, and vanished. The disaster that could well have extinguished dozens of galaxies, hundreds of thousands of stars and living organisms, entire civilizations, had been stopped in its tracks, like a mass murderer gunned down by a cop before they could get through a movie theater's doors.

But it still had caused terrible damage before being nipped in the bud.

Whole surgical machines were gone. Joaquin clutched the scalpel wound on his forearm, and Glarith's waist arms fiercely gripped both Armaeon and Doctor Custavilla. Gradually sensing it was now okay to release her hold, the Tarlan casually turned two of her stalk eyes downward-and horror came flooding into them as she realized what she held in two of her hands.

The Nidian charge nurse was shaken, but pretty much all right. Custavilla was another matter entirely. Subjected to powerful tidal forces and bombarded by loose objects, his body was a broken, feebly scrabbling mass of splintered legs and yellow-green guts, soaked in and trickling pea-green hemolymph. In minutes he would be dead, and not even his fellow physicians would be able to save him.

Hearing the quavering whistles of an upset Kelgian, Zhong turned to see that they were coming from Segaard's top mouth as he writhed on the floor. The alien's fur fluttered and twitched in a way that, to the experienced observer, plainly bespoke his terror and agony even while becoming soaked with his translucent yellow blood.

Kelgian blood contained a very low concentration of clotting factors, and their skin was surprisingly delicate for such large creatures. Both of these factors meant that they all too often bled to death after sustaining even mild injuries, and it seemed that this would now be Segaard's fate as well.

Bill Schuler clumsily hobbled forward to the hemorrhaging Kelgian and knelt down, half baring his teeth at the pain of a smashed right knee as he removed his surgical gown, coiled it like a sleeping bag and pressed it tight down on Segaard's gushing thorax wound, telling him, "Stay still."

Cindy and Mallafi retreated back from the slowly growing, haunted-house cloud of chlorine gas, smelling like a cross between pineapple and ground pepper, that slid out from a 2-foot long, jagged tear in Meethra's protective garb.

If inhaled, chlorine gas can cause serious irritation or damage to the lungs by combining with water to form hydrochloric acid, which may result in suffocation. The same chemical reaction may cause temporary irritation or permanent blindness when the gas reacts with tears. Thankfully, chlorine gas is heavier than air, so both the human and Eltan were in little danger of breathing it in as long as they kept their feet away.

The same couldn't be said for Meethra, helplessly squeezing the tear with all her flagging strength. The Illensan flailed like a drowning swimmer, gasping and hacking as her literal breath of life dissipated out into the surgery, rapidly being replaced with toxic, killing oxygen. Everyone was cut and bruised.

All this damage and impending death, brought about by the wild, hurricane power of the quantum sinkhole, impressed itself on Aaron Zhong's awareness within 20 bemused, unreal seconds.

Suddenly, something else leapt from the realm of theories, of lectures and writings, and into the land of what was perceived as reality in that surgical bay on Sector 12 General Hospital. It happened like flowers blooming, in a quiet, serenely unstoppable way.

One by one, all the damage caused by the space-time gash healed. Surgical machines that had fallen in the rift materialized again in a green-tan twinkling. Pill bottles, scalpels, and other loose objects reappeared back in their proper drawers, on pans, on counters. Best of all, as Zhong gazed around, slack-jawed in disbelieving wonder, miracles happened to him and his fellow staff in the surgery.

Meethra's suit magically sealed itself, and more chlorine gas darkened the interior of her now whole suit. Blood stopped trickling from wounds. Custavilla's legs turned from smashed kindling back into elegant, precise, spindly legs, and his body no longer resembled a stomped beetle's.

Each of her stalk eyes bulging with puzzled astonishment, Glarith's translated voice came over the speakers after she gave a single low, throaty rumble.

"The rubber band effect."

"Yes," agreed an awe-struck Bill Schuler. "The rubber band scenario actually happened."

A now healed Segaard, fur rapidly quivering and moving in waves that communicated his horror, agitation and fear-tainted relief as he arched his back, got to his feet and regarded the puddles of his own blood, whistled and whooped in the flat manner of his species, "Rubber band effect? What in Davgeer's name are you taking about?"

"Well," Glarith lowed, "to make a long story short, it's the theoretical idea that if a significant rip or disruption is caused in the quantum foam that composes space-time on an ultra-microscopic scale, one that eats into another universe-"

"Like almost happened here," a shaken Meethra blurted out.

"-it will cause great damage to whatever and whoever is nearby, at the very least."

"Hell yes," Zhong muttered.

"But if that rift or disruption can be halted or healed," the Tarlan continued patiently, "the sheer quantum inertia generated will cause ALL matter affected by those forces to be pulled back into their proper place."

"It's just like how as soon as you release a rubber band you've stretched out, it snaps back, goes limp, and looks the same as it did before, hence the name," Dr. Schuler added.

"Well, thank God it proved to be more than just a theory," Joaquin said, shuddering. "Segaard, Custavilla, Meethra…"

"Please don't say any more Joaquin," the insectoid alien implored, his already terrible distress further amplified by having to show a small measure of rudeness towards his colleague. "I do not want to think that these could've been my last moments of life right now."

"Me neither," Segaard wholeheartedly agreed. "But my poor pelt! I shall have this great ugly scar for the rest of my life now, disfiguring my beauty, and never be able to express my feelings quite as well anymore! Why did that cursed Rafiki have to send _him _to us?"

"Because we're the best at what we do Segaard," Mallafi answered, "so how about we all continue doing what has to be done to fix this poor guy up?"

"You can't just ask me to get control and back to work minutes after I'm almost sucked into a rift and ripped apart," Armareon trembled.

"Mallafi's right," Zhong sternly concurred. "Look," he told his fellow surgery staff, "what just happened there was something pretty tough, pretty bizarre, and horrifying beyond our ability to express right now. Some of you almost died, and we all could've, to say nothing of many, many more people-or aliens. But whether it was a miracle, the electric shocks, pure dumb luck, or something else, the patient's back and no disaster happened. He's still not out of danger yet though, and if he crashes again, we might not get a second chance. So let's deal with any personal distress and _fear_ after he's stabilized and in the majors area, okay?"

"Yes. Back to what we do best," Glarith said obediently.

With a supreme effort, all the doctors and nurses managed to pull themselves together and continue the work of stabilizing the writer's condition. The first priority was to continue getting blood units and saline into Jack's cat-drained veins. On the monitor recording his vital signs, Zhong noted with a tentative relief that Driscoll was gingerly improving. They'd administered 2 liters of warmed saline through the IV already since he'd arrived, gotten a unit of blood in him and were putting in a second. And soon, if a certain Kelgian's actions were any indication, he would even be getting some of his own bodily fluids returned.

Returning to the task he'd been focused on before the playwright and space-time had temporarily gone to hell, Segaard saw that the centrifuge in the collection chamber of the autotransfusion machine had just come to a halt. During all the fearful quantum commotion, the fluid traveling down the waste tube had become as clear as the silicone itself, and the machine, detecting this, clamped shut the ports for the saline, gradually bringing the centrifuge's dervish whirling to a stop. Now special clamps under the bottom opening of the bowl parted, and the pump began to smoothly rotate the collection bowl in a clockwise direction, the playwright's blood streaming into a blood bag attached to the port below. Attached to it in turn was another bag, and another below that.

As the burgundy conglomeration of red blood cells paused at the bottom of the first bag before sliding down into the second, then third, Segaard became especially sharp. Attentively gazing at the third and bottom bag with his crab eyes, the Kelgian waited until it was almost completely filled up, then gently used the four-fingered hands of his upper two arms to press several air bubbles trapped at the top of the bag towards the center and up into the higher one. Their breathing liability of a patient had already come close enough to kicking off a chain reaction of death and ruin, and it was all the more reason not to let him suffer an embolism. Making sure not to lose any of the blood in the second bag by pinching shut the short connection tube, and then stopping it up, Segaard tied off the blood bag and gave it to Joaquin, saying, "Here you are," to the anesthesiologist.

"Thanks Segaard," he offhandedly acknowledged, placing the bag on a metal tray while the current one emptied. In all, putting on new bags as required, the caterpillar-like alien filled two and a half red blood cell units with the New Yorker's self-donated blood. As it left the space around his right lung, Jack's breathing gradually became less labored and more regular. The crimson stream slowed, and then sputtered, coming to a stop.

Armareon knew what to do, and as her Kelgian colleague turned off the machine, the Nidian carefully used a Kelly clamp to separate the edges of the incision Aaron Zhong had made between Jack's 4th and 5th ribs and smoothly slid the silicone tube out. Meanwhile, Cindy unwrapped a new tube, with the same diameter as the first, and gave it to Armareon.

Inserting one of her short, stubby gloved fingers into the patient's chest incision to keep it open and to encourage the lung to fall away, the Nidian lightly grasped the tube's end with the Kelly forceps, the tube and the instrument both parallel to each other, and inserted it into Jack's chest cavity. Releasing the tube, she inserted more of it through the incision, until several inches were inside Jack. At this point, Cindy used the Kelly forceps to keep the other end clamped shut as Mallafi brought over a chest drainage canister, about the size and shape of a quart canning jar. With a curved needle and blue-black silk thread, Dr. Schuler stitched the chest incision shut and then sewed the drain tube right into the writer's skin, using a square of medical tape to further affix it in place.

Cindy then hooked the free end up to the drainage canister, inserting it almost to the bottom. As Jack exhaled, passive suction would draw out any remaining blood or air in his chest cavity.

Glancing up, Zhong realized that Jack's skin was once more regaining its proper color, a healthy pink flush returning to his lips and nail beds. Lightly touching the patient's arm, Zhong was gratified to feel warmth seeping back into the skin and hear Driscoll's heartbeat stabilize. The tide had definitely turned.

Now the trauma nurses and Dr. Custavilla descended on the writer with surgical needles, little sickles of steel with blue nylon thread trailing behind them. Clasping each one in a hemostat like device known as a needle holder, each nurse and the Cinruss drove the point of their needle home at the southern end of a slash, curving it up and forward.

Puncture. Pierce flesh on other side. Move up through skin like a hawk's talon through a gopher. Swivel about. Repeat.

As Jack's wounds were being closed with dozens of vertical mattress sutures, Aaron Zhong and Bill Schuler prepared to implement a form of paradoxical healing known as therapeutic hypothermia. Due to his cardiac arrest and major blood loss, they knew that Jack's brain, kidneys, heart, and other organs had suffered a severe lack of nutrients and oxygen, which could result in a fatal, tissue-destroying buildup of metabolic toxins. Then too, being unconscious, they couldn't know for sure if the writer had suffered any traumatic brain injury, but also knew that they needed to minimize any damage that could well be happening right now.

Finally, although the trauma team had done and would continue its best to sterilize his injuries (and Joaquin had given the writer a syringe full of penicillin in the arm somewhere along the line), the chances that Driscoll would contract an infection from the leopard's bacteria-laden teeth and claws were all too good. Even if his body and space-age medicine could manage to keep the infection in check, his immune system would be weakened by the battle and could be overrun by a previously dormant pathogen. And based on where Rafiki had sent him from, Zhong felt malaria was the most likely-and most dreadful-prospect waiting in the wings. Either way, Jack would find himself in the power of a raging fever that could kill him in itself.

The best and most reliable way to shield him against all three dangers was to drastically reduce cellular metabolism and prevent ionic flooding of cells by making the membrane more stable-and that meant literally getting Jack to chill out for the next 24 earthly hours. It would also reduce the pressure from any hemorrhaging between his brain and his skull, besides the amount of free radicals that were being produced by the white blood cells as his circulation was improving.

From what Zhong figured, Jack had been in cardiac arrest for 2-3 minutes, meaning that the New Yorker now had as much as a 30 percent higher chance of dying sometime in the near future. Happily though, inducing carefully controlled hypothermia would increase his chances of pulling through by 35 percent and also increase his odds of _not_ suffering brain damage by 39 percent.

"Joaquin," the trauma team leader said half-jokingly, "we're going to put this guy in the cooler. You know what to do."

Nodding, the anesthesiologist paced to one of the cupboards and took out a vial of meperidine and one of amoxicillin. Like all mammals, a chilled human being will start to shiver as a method of creating heat when their body temperature drops below 96.8 degrees F.

Normally this is all well and good, but everyone in the surgical bay knew that this was the last way they wanted Jack's body to respond to being chilled. For one thing, shivering would burn heaps of energy--energy that could be put to better use in healing his tissues. In addition, with the possibility of mild brain injury in the cards, any sustained quivering of his muscles could well trigger a grand mal seizure.

And in a grim irony, although it would alleviate any fever it could bring about, hypothermia would also actually _increase_ the chance that Jack would contract an infection, or have an imbalance in electrolytes.

So Cortez gave Jack a shot of meperidine to relax the writer's muscles and so prevent shivering, and a big dose of amoxicillin to help that previous jab of penicillin with keeping any secondary bacterial infections subdued.

Glarith removed the defibrillator pads from the playwright's flushing chest and moved the machine away with two of her major arms, while Bill brought over a medium sized machine known as the Arctic Sun temperature management device. About the size and form of a household dehumidifier, the device would be hooked up to six pads, their bottom surfaces coated with a water-based gel, which would be placed in pairs on the writer's pectoral muscles, upper abdomen (it didn't matter if they overlapped the previous dressing), and upper thighs.

As experienced members of a trauma team in DBDG level, Armaeon, Cindy, and Segaard hadn't even bothered asking their superiors if hypothermia was going to be used in this case. They just knew, and so had made sure to primarily concentrate on the wounds that the gel pads would cover while stitching.

Being the strongest of the trio of nurses, Segaard gripped Driscoll's right forearm and pulled him on his side while Cindy removed the backing from each pad and then placed it on the proper site. Not taking any risk of being inadvertently harmed, Doctor Custavilla backed off and literally flew up the nearest wall, still holding his needle in those sucker-tipped fingers as he waited, watching as his Kelgian colleague went around the operating table and pulled Jack onto his other side so that the other three pads could be put in place.

Each pad had a rubber tube that fed water into it from the top, and Armaeon attached each one to the machine's outlets, while Doctor Zhong himself set the control module to chill the water flowing through the middle layer of each pad to 35 degrees Celsius, which would in turn reduce Jack's core temperature to 33 degrees over the next half hour. The most critical time for a patient post-surgery was always the next 24 hours. Factoring in the likelihood of infection, Zhong decided to make the cooling period last for 36. After that, they would see.

Stepping back and away from the table, Aaron gave a heartfelt, if tentative, sigh of relief as all three nurses returned to stitching Jack's wounds, Custavilla fluttering down to rejoin them. Their extraordinary patient was not out of danger by any stretch of the imagination. He could deteriorate and die any time during the next couple days, taking the whole medical station with it and at least damaging the multiverse. Yet, for the moment, he was stable and in good, competent hands.

While Cindy used a razor to carefully remove the hair from the edges of Jack's scalp wounds before stitching, Mallafi retrieved some padding from a cupboard and gauze to wrap around Driscoll's head like a crude turban. Meanwhile, Meethra prepared to insert a urine drain, swabbing the urethral opening with povidone-iodine before threading the Coude catheter up through it and into the bladder.

Doctor Zhong considered having a gastric tube installed through Jack's abdominal muscles, but decided against it. He could get by just fine with IV hydration during the critical next two days, and his organ systems had enough to deal with without food processing.

Soon, Jack Driscoll would be sent to the Critical Care unit of DBDG's general medical area. Right now though, it was time to perform the secondary survey, which was intended to find any subtle injury the team might've overlooked. Being an animal mauling however, the chance of that was remote. It wasn't like he'd fallen off a cliff or had a factory accident, for gosh sakes!

The worst thing that could show up in the secondary was a brain injury, but Glarith could manage just fine if it came to that. Truth be told, Zhong was far more worried about finding out what scrappy information he could about Jack's medical history. To do that he'd have to contact one of the team who worked on Ann, or better yet, talk to Ann himself.

And then there was the matter of the quantum rupture the New Yorker's near-death experience had caused. Everyone on Sector 12 General Hospital knew better than to interrupt a surgery-especially one as important as this-in any manner. Still, Doctor Zhong was too aware that when he came out of the resuscitation area, staff would be all over him, wanting explanations, assurances, and a chance to vent their anger and fear--including the head of Sector 12, Major Jake Sullivan. He needed _that_ little press meeting like a rat in his bed. But there was nothing for it.

"Bill, Custavilla," he told his fellow physicians, "I'm going to go tell Ann how Jack's doing and have her tell me what she can about his health history. Could you two take over for me and have the paramedics bring him over to CCU once the secondary exam is finished?"

"Sure thing Aaron," the Cinruss replied as Bill nodded.

"Thanks guys," Zhong said as he turned and went to the bay's steel sink. "Also, if he takes a turn for the worse or you find something nasty, you _call _me okay?"

"In a heartbeat," Bill assured him.

As Zhong removed his blood-smeared gloves and lowered his surgical mask, he glanced up at the digital clock above the door of the surgical bay, concentrating on the display which showed the time in earthly hours. In all, the surgery had lasted close to five hours.

"Time flies when you're having fun," he muttered sardonically as he pushed open the swinging doors.

As expected, Major Sullivan was outside the unit of surgery bays to greet him, at the head of an uncertain pack of humans and aliens. Six feet in height, chestnut brown hair and mustache speckled with gray, his brown eyes locked on the Chinese man as he strode over and demanded, "What in blazes happened back in there exactly, Dr. Zhong?"

The trauma team leader gave a great, shuddering sigh. It was a sigh of exhaustion, of nerves, of relief, of fear, of confusion, of irritation. As he collapsed into the nearest chair, he candidly, wearily told the hospital administrator, "Let's just say it was one hell of a polytrauma surgery Major."

"One fucking _**hell**_ of a polytrauma surgery."

* * *

**Yeah, I know we had a blatant _deux ex machina _there. Unfortunately, I don't know or understand enough about quantum physics or astrophysics to give a concise explanation of _why _and _how_ that lucky outcome came to be. Plus, I'll be frank here and admit that I just don't have the heart to kill off _any_ "good guys" in my fics-unless it happened in canon, of course. So I put in some technobabble. :) For the sake of this fic, the "rubber band effect" just happened.**

**I also worked very hard, to say the least, to make this scene as medically accurate as possible. Still, I probably got a few things wrong anyhow. If anyone notices an error, just know that I tried my best to keep it out and was innocent of the mistake. **

**Chapter 32 won't take _nearly _so long to arrive folks, I promise!**


	32. Ann, Aaron, and A Prognosis

**See folks? I promised that I'd be churning out chapters a bit more quickly now, and here's the proof! Thanks to ograndebatata, Maran Zelde, RebeccaAnn, pachysam, and all my other reviewers!**

**Also, I just want to let everyone know that I intend to have this Sector 12 General Hospital portion be little more than a pit stop in terms of the plot. Because of that, I will be summarizing, fast-forwarding, and just focusing more on general outlines than on every detail whenever I can. I hope this won't bother anyone too much.**

* * *

_"Even nagolah me'al libba." _Translation: a stone was removed off my heart. Hebrew proverb.

"After a fall such as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling downstairs!" _Alice's Adventures In Wonderland_, Lewis Carrol, 1865.

"_You wonder/ but you just don't know..." _From The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island, 1997.

In her private hospital room, located in the minors area of DBDG, Ann unenthusiastically took a bite out of the slice of sausage pizza one of the Nidian nurses had brought. As she chewed, she listened to Ira Gershwin's _Rhapsody in Blue_, pounding out from the speakers of some sleek, polished device that vaguely looked like a cross between a radio and a small loaf of bread. Yet one more marvelous display of human progress that she couldn't fully get her mind around.

Oh, the food was great, an absolute luxury for a vaudeville girl like her (Ann could've counted on one hand the number of times she'd ever eaten pizza), and she'd always had a fondness for what some called New York City's theme song-indeed, she'd performed numbers on stage to it before. Right now though, she really couldn't muster the energy or concentration to enjoy either of them.

Whenever Ann was greatly confused by something, it made her nervous and frightened. During the past few hours, her mind had been a whirlwind of agitation, stress, and near-hysteria, battling to cope with this insane hospital, her separation from the fella who _needed her_ and the wacko-looking Martians that worked alongside the human staff. Forget about being a whole different ball game-this wasn't even _a_ ball game anymore! It all made her very brain ache like she'd gone to Coney Island and ridden the roller coaster ten times in a row.

To their credit though, the doctors and nurses had gone out of their way to calm and accommodate her. When they'd been about to remove her slip and satin tap pants, and then give her a sponge bath before stitching her slashes, Ann had objected against having any men involved in the procedure.

She knew that as doctors, they'd seen and worked on unclothed women countless times, taking no lecherous interest whatsoever-yet, the idea of being in such a position, in front of men who she didn't know, was immensely humiliating. Respecting her sensibilities, a few alterations had been made to the team so that the only males involved were those of different species, who she knew would feel no more desire towards her than she would towards a bear.

The alien creatures had also made an effort to soothe Ann's fear of them, assuring her that they were all plant eaters and that they considered it a privilege to be able to live alongside and help fellow intelligent beings like herself. Besides, the ones that had actually laid hands on her during surgery-whether they were the short, teddy-bear Nidians or the Sciurids, resembling anthropomorphic gray squirrels-were really quite charming, furry and cute, which appealed to the actress's inner child and put her mind somewhat at ease.

On the examining table, she'd kicked off her reed shoes-which she now realized must have been Rafiki's handiwork-and obediently lain prone as Doctor Oriween, a female Eltan, and Charge Nurse Kuckh, an adorable male Sciurid, applied pressure to her sliced flank and back loins to halt the bloodletting. All that horrid dirt, dust, urine, grass and blood was then sponged off with warm water, the staff mostly working from her collarbone southward. Then came the awful part of the procedure.

Ann had expected, and indeed, hoped that her wounds would be disinfected. Yes, the stuff smarted, and she flinched, but she closed her eyes and put up with it. What _really_ made her balk and wish she was any other place but there were the needles. One was at the end of a syringe filled with something Oriween told her was a local anesthetic called lidocaine, and the others were horrible things that looked like miniature versions of Captain Hook's trademark prosthesis. Apparently, **those** torture devices would be used to stitch up her wounds!

Even if it was for her own good, Ann enjoyed having the idea of needles being put in her flesh about as much as she'd enjoyed meeting the cannibal villagers on Skull Island. Always had, always would. But she'd remained prone on the table, shut her eyes to block everything out, and endured the jabbing, entrails twisting every time she sensed Oriween lowering her hand.

The lidocaine proved to be a blessing in disguise, making the suturing of Nduli's raking wounds far less agonizing than Ann had anticipated. Didn't keep her from feeling _some_ of what those Frankensteins were doing with those needles though-and that was plenty, thank you!

The staff wasn't done with needles yet. She'd also received a third shot, to prevent against tetanus, and had a vial of blood drawn from her forearm. On asking, Ann had candidly been told by the Kelgian sticking her that it was in order to check for things like her blood type, sodium levels, the presence of any drugs-and most mortifying of all, if she happened to be storked!

Now, dressed in a hospital gown-how deeply thankful she was to wear clean, proper, halfway _decent_ clothing again!-her sunburns and scratches treated with a cooling salve, pain squelched by some kinda pill, and her frazzled, boggled mind calmed by another pill that Charge Nurse Whitney said was called Valium, Ann kept replaying the same silent, heartwrenching questions.

_**Where**__ is Jack? Is he even still __**alive**__ anymore? Will I ever see him again? Will the doctors __tell me __**he's dead?**_

She could hear doctors and orderlies, human or Martian, walking past her room in the hallway, accompanied by buzzing snatches of speech. It almost seemed like they didn't dare interact with her for fear that they too, would fall victim to the same misfortune that had struck down Jack, Simba, and everybody else who got to know her closely. Maybe, Ann thought, they even blamed her somehow for what had happened to Jack and were giving her the cold shoulder.

The rational portion of her mind sneered that such a notion was harebrained. Every member of the hospital staff had extremely important duties to concentrate on. They just didn't have the time to visit patients and get chummy with them.

It was just that Ann couldn't stand feeling so isolated and in the dark about Jack's welfare.

Abruptly, there was a knock at the door, and a male voice requesting, "Miss Darrow, may I come in?" It was the Oriental doctor, she realized, who'd been working on Jack!

"Just a moment!" she replied, pressing the OFF button on the amazing device which played music for her and swinging her tray table aside. "Okay, come in!"

As the door swung open, Doctor Zhong strode in, and Ann noticed that he was still in his turquoise surgery garb, mask down at his chin, cap hugging his black hair, a notepad clamped in his left armpit. His gloves and surgical apron were off though, and Ann was very grateful for that, not having to see articles of clothing that she knew would've been speckled with her fella's blood.

All the same, just seeing the surgeon and the even, somewhat haggard expression on his face was enough to make her plenty distraught. Hoping, praying, she asked "For the sake of Goodness Doc, tell me that Jack's okay!!"

Zhong looked at her, considering, and then Ann felt that horrible sensation, the curse infiltrating her heart and soul to rip yet another too-brief period of happiness out from her life. Desperately she chanted to herself as Zhong's lips opened, _No, don't say it, don't say it, don't you dare say it!_

"Don't worry Miss Darrow, Jack's alive and, for the moment, stable," he assured her, and Ann knew he was sincere.

"Thank. Jesus. Thank _you!_" Ann praised, her body nearly shuddering with an indescribable relief. It was if all the worry and dread had been a poison that, with the wave of a magic wand, had just been cleansed from her veins. "Anyway, how is he now Doc?"

"A lot better than before. We gave him some units of blood and warm saline intravenously, and he responded well to them. We also managed to stop all the bleeding and stitch his wounds up, like yours were."

"That's great to hear! What about where he got bitten in the chest though? I'm sure some of his ribs were broken, at the least," she commented, a small spiral of fury at Nduli and Scar twisting up inside her gut.

"Yeah, that bite caused some nasty problems. He sustained four broken ribs from it, besides a punctured lung. There was lots of blood in the space around that lung too, to the point that it couldn't expand. But we got it drained out with a tube, separated the red blood cells out into bags, and put them back in his veins after running it through a filter to prevent blood poisoning."

Ann briefly gave Zhong a quizzical look. Running blood through a filter? Taking out the red blood cells and putting them back into a person's body? She'd never heard of a surgical procedure like that before. Medicine in general though, was just yet another of those subjects that she only crudely comprehended.

But what the hell. Jack was less likely to get blood poisoning, had at least some of his shed blood back in its rightful place, and that was the most important thing for her mind to grasp.

"What about that lung? And his ribs? Are they patched up now?" she asked.

"They are Miss Darrow. Right now we have Jack hooked up to a vental-well, it's a machine that is giving him extra oxygen and doing the breathing for him, helping to keep his lung inflated so that it can heal, which'll take sometime between two to five days. As for his ribs, they'll heal on their own without help. We'll just keep him on painkillers and wait."

"Doc, thanks so much to you and your team for saving Jack's life. It's obvious to me that you've done a lot of good already, but-" Ann halted, struggling to put the agonizing inquiry into words. Clamping down, her voice cracked as she said, "Jack's going to be okay now, won't he? He isn't going-going to die, is he, Doctor Zhong?"

His voice turning cloud soft, demeanor kindly, the surgeon responded, "Not if we can help it Miss Darrow. His chances of survival are much better now that we've stabilized him. Plus, whenever a person is badly hurt like Jack, their odds are highest if they can receive medical attention within an hour of being harmed-and from what I can tell, Rafiki got you to us within that time frame. So please understand that the odds are very much in his favor."

"Still though," the surgeon continued, "I'll also be honest with you about the facts, grim as they may sound. Maulings are no walk in the park in terms of smooth healing, and Jack is still in very real danger. If his wounds become septic and we can't halt the infection, if a previously dormant illness flares up, or he suddenly starts to bleed uncontrollably from a wound-yes, Jack could die. Right now, the balance is tipped in his favor, but death is possible."

Ann didn't think of herself as an emotional basketcase. She'd taken awful news from doctors before, like when she'd learned that Bess, a close friend of hers, had lost her battle with the flu. She thought she could be strong this time too. Yet, feeling sick with fear, acidic tears once more flowed from her eyes.

Approaching closer, Zhong placed a commiserating hand on her arm, telling her, "I know Miss Darrow. It's a horrible feeling, knowing that you could lose somebody whom you love dearly-and even more so if they risked their life for you as a sign of that love."

Through her tears, Ann nodded. "He's never told me that he loves me, and I've never told him either, but…we just know anyway." With the bizarre frankness that many patients show towards doctors and nurses in divulging their personal lives, she stated, "He's all I have in my life Doc, and if I lost him, I'd be beyond devastated!"

"I totally understand," Zhong replied. "You love him like he's your husband, don't you?"

She nodded again, fresh tears trickling. "Not only that, but if he died…well, I know this'll sound crackers, but I'd feel like I let him down, in a huge way."

"Well, all we can do is hope for the best and give him top-of-the-line care. And speaking of medical care, I'd like to ask you some questions about what you know about Jack's medical history, if it's okay with you."

"If it'll help him, sure thing."

"Like I said before, the biggest worry right now is that his injuries could become septic, which could in turn result in fevers, weaken his natural defenses against other diseases, and other complications. The bright side though, is that we've given him lots of antibiotics, and that septicemia is most acute in people who are poorly nourished or just in bad physical condition to begin with. It certainly looks to me like Mr. Driscoll is a man who knows how to look after himself properly," Zhong ventured as he placed the notepad on his lap and took a blue pen out of his pocket, holding it above the paper like a hunting heron holds its beak above a pond's surface.

Recalling memories of playbills, Information About the Author sections at the back of her copies of the printed plays, newspaper and magazine articles, glimpses of his behavior on the Venture, and conversations they'd shared on the ship, Ann said, "He's a writer by trade, but he's never allowed himself to get fat or slothful. I know that he used to be on the wrestling, running, and swimming teams at Columbia University, and he still swims, runs, and plays tennis to keep fit. He also doesn't take a cab or drive if he can walk someplace, and he seems to eat at least fairly healthy. Oh yes, he tries to practice good hygiene if possible."

Grinning and nodding in amusement and approval while he scribbled down her response, Zhong said, "Then we have some high ground there in addition to the treatments we're administering. There's lots of hope that he can pull through a bout if it happens."

"Now, it's my understanding that Jack was conscious for a time after the fight with the leopard, but had been knocked out for a period of time before that," he went on.

"That's correct."

"Tell me Ann, did he exhibit any strange behavior during the time he was conscious?"

Confused, Ann felt her brows wrinkle as she replied, "He'd just been sliced up and knocked out by a leopard. All of his behavior was strange!"

"What I meant was, did he just not seem himself? For example, did his speech seem slurred or incoherent?"

"No."

"Did his vision seem unfocused, or did he look like he was staring through you?"

"No."

"Did his personality or emotions seem out of character for him under the circumstances? For instance, did he seem combative or like he just didn't care?"

"No."

"Did you ever see any part of his face suddenly go rigid, with part of his lip peeling back, as if he'd bitten into something disgusting?"

"No."

"Did one side of his body or his entire body suddenly tense up and start to jerk or shake, like he was being electrocuted?"

"No, but sweet baby Jesus, are you saying that those things could actually happen to him Doc?" Ann gasped in horror.

"Potentially, yes, if he has any sort of traumatic brain injury. Then there could be things like mental confusion, seizures, memory loss, and other things."

A terrible fear pierced through Ann's very core like a dagger. She lurched up into a seated position, wincing as the stitches in her flesh were tugged. "What the hell? Traumatic brain injury? Are you telling me that if Jack recovers, he would have…have brain damage?"

Speaking the very words made a greasy nausea wash through Ann Darrow, and she could almost _feel_ the blood draining from her cheeks. She thought of her Jack of Hearts with brain damage-going through life aware that something had been lost, frustrated and forever cut off from what he had once been, living in a dullness, a constricting grayness, a prisoner in his own body.

"Yes, there could be a degree of brain damage. From what you've told me and what we've seen from him though, it's unlikely that it would be anything which would seriously affect his quality of life. It's probably little more than a concussion at worst-and any symptoms from those almost always go away within three weeks of rest, which he'll be getting plenty of anyway. We'll also be keeping him under very close observation too. So the bottom line is that the outcome will almost certainly be excellent."

"I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that," Ann smiled gratefully, sinking back against the bed. "But if Jack's brain _was_ addled, how bad off would he be?"

"Well, the most likely thing Jack would suffer from is having more headaches, or longer-lasting ones, than he did previously. He might get dizzy sometimes. He could be somewhat more irritable, nervous, or restless than before, be more likely to get confused, or he'd have mild trouble paying attention. Even those effects however, would disappear within a year. The brain's tougher and more flexible than we often give it credit for."

Partly because she sensed that the subject had been played out, partly because it was as good a time as any to make the request, Ann sat up straight and looked the Oriental doctor in his black eyes. Calling on all her experience as an actress to project that perfect combination of determination and pitiful mien, she told him, "Doctor Zhong, could you please have the nursing staff bring me to Jack's bed? I wanna stay with him."

Regretfully, the weary surgeon shook his head. "I'm really sorry Miss Darrow, but we can't do that."

"Why not! I'm fixed up now, after all, and you told me that Jack's out of danger."

"Yes, but moving you to the critical care unit wouldn't make any sense, and we definitely can't move him here to the minors. I promise we'll take excellent care of him, so don't you worry."

"Okay, understood, he's got to be over there," Ann gabbled, too eager to please, "to stay in the section where you have the devices to keep him alive and will be watching over him. Why not make things easier for you fellas and have me watch over him too?"

"I'd like to Miss Darrow, but that's against hospital regulations. For one thing, male and female patients of the same species can't share the same room."

"Can't you bend the rules just this once?"

"That's not my decision to make Miss Darrow! Look, having you sharing quarters with Jack would be very sweet, don't get me wrong, and I'm glad you're so loyal to hi-"

"That's exactly it," Ann said, her tone turning firm and steely. "Loyalty. Did you know that man you're denying me from being with risked his life and nearly died for me at least _six times_ over during the past five days-and that's not even counting that horrible leopard? He's hunted for me, played in the water with me, picked lotus blossoms for me, held me in his arms as we slept, cooked for me, and the least I can do to repay Jack is to be there for him while he's lying shredded and at death's door in a hospital bed!"

Eyes goggling behind his glasses, mouth coming unhinged, the Oriental stared at her, impressed. "You're saying that Jack put his life on the line for you even _before_ the leopard attack? And on several separate occasions at that?"

"Sure did," Ann proudly confirmed. "Most of them were on Skull Island when he was trying to get me away from Kong, although I was only there to witness two."

The doctor stared at her again, blinking, steeped in a state of disbelief that if anything, was even more pronounced than before. "What? Did you say Skull Island? Kong? But they're both made up, part of a movie!" he denied.

"Says you!" Ann snorted. "They're most certainly not made up!"

"I knew it," Zhong mumbled to himself. "I knew that I'd somehow seen you two already along the line, I just didn't remember the context."

"What in the world are you talking about Doc?" Ann inquired, uneasy and utterly confused.

"Never mind that for now," he sighed. "Just trust me when I say its _way_ too complicated, and would just cause us both to think that the other is utterly cuckoo. Anyhow, we can't have you taking up a place in CCU that another seriously wounded warm-blooded oxygen breather might need at a moment's notice. There _is_ a way that we could meet you halfway however," the surgeon said thoughtfully.

"How's that?"

"Well, it'll involve a lot of technology that'll be pretty weird in your eyes, considering that you hail from the early 1930's," he informed her. The sheer insanity of such a statement made them both chuckle in a surreal, (and in Ann's case, half-hysterical), type of amusement. "But I'll try to make things clear."

Over the next ten minutes, Doctor Zhong patiently explained as best he could about hologram emitters, fiber-optic cables, heart monitors, and EKGs. All were as exotic and alien to Ann as the technology she was used to living among would've been to the lions or the Founding Fathers. Her mind grappled to make sense of such fantastic devices, and in the end, she felt that just comprehending the basest concepts was victory enough.

"But the bottom line though, is that you'll be able to remotely check on Jack from your room in two different ways if you wish," the Oriental surgeon concluded.

Her eyelids meeting, Ann drew a measured, very deliberate breath, trying to visualize the duo of daffy devices that Doctor Zhong had described as her connections to Jack. "You know, I'm just a simple stage actress who had to drop out of schooling in 7th grade," she frankly admitted, embarrassment at her ignorance lowering her face and warming her cheeks, "so I'm not going to pretend that I understand what you're talking about when it comes to these machines or how they work. But if they'll give me a way to watch over Jack, and let me know that he's still alive-yeah, installing them's certainly okay by me! And will he able to do the same thing too, if-_once_ he recovers enough?"

"We can probably arrange that," Zhong replied, gently smiling. "However, Miss Darrow, it'll be at least forty-eight hours before we can be confident that Jack will make it. So when we _do_ hook up the holographic emitter and the vitals display in here, I want you to make use of them as little as possible at first-it would only be upsetting, and the emotional stress would only do you more harm."

"Oh, how could it possibly harm me?" Ann said dismissively.

"Well," the surgeon replied, "for one thing, nobody wants to see you be sad and distressed Miss Darrow. Even more importantly, even though you aren't as badly hurt, your life could be at risk too."

Shocked, the actress felt her stomach muscles cave in and her eyes saucer as she exclaimed, "Are you saying I'm in danger of dying myself, Doc? How can that even be possible? I mean, they're only a few flesh wounds."

"That's correct, and your chances of actually suffering a major complication are small. Still, it's possible that you might've been exposed to malaria on Skull Island (and on uttering the name Ann noticed an incredulous, here-and-gone grin appear on his face, head wagging in disbelief), or sleeping sickness in Africa."

"Malaria! I could have that awful disease?" Ann shouted in horror. "If that's true, I hope to God you have quinine and ice!"

"Don't worry Ann," Zhong soothed, "we'll be putting you on a course of drugs for both diseases as a precaution later on. It's a proven fact though, that people who are distressed and sad are more likely to get sick, so that's why you should do your best to stay upbeat, focus on your own welfare, and definitely don't look in on Jack more than you can help, as it could easily just turn into a self-reinforcing excuse to feel miserable. Doctor's orders," he added half-jokingly.

"I can't really argue with your logic," Ann shrugged. "And you're quite right, I should try not to become obsessed with checking on Jack's condition all the time. It's just that I don't have anything else to focus on Doc, and that's what makes not worrying about him so hard," she lamented.

"Well Miss Darrow, I think we can easily solve that problem," Aaron proposed. "Among other things, I think you'll take great enjoyment as you heal from watching these hand sized disks that we store movies on, and call DVDs…"

* * *

In the critical care unit of DBDG level, Jack Driscoll's tanned form lay inert in a hospital bed, trunk covered by the great cobalt blue patches of the Arctic Sun device, a turban of white gauze swathing his head. Like a strange, translucent alien fruit, a bag of electrolyte-spiked water hung from a metal stand, contents unhurriedly seeping down the IV tube and into his bloodstream. There was no sound other than the placid hiss of the ventilator and the shaky blips from the computer that telegraphed his heartbeat, pulse, and other hallmarks of life.

Nothing seemed amiss, and none of the alarms that indicated a serious problem with a patient had gone off, yet that didn't stop Registered Nurse Logan-Zag from coming over for the twenty-third time to look the playwright up and down. Word of the astonishing events in the surgery bay and the unthinkable disaster that had been prevented by Aaron Zhong's actions had spread among the staff like fire through dry brush, and like everyone else, the Nidian didn't feel he could be too paranoid about preventing the whole business from happening again.

The teddy bear-esque alien briefly assessed the human's condition. Still hanging in there, thank the gods. As he turned to leave the room though, Logan abruptly thought he saw Jack's body deflate a bit, loosen up, in his peripheral vision. Scurrying forward, the Nidian's eyes confirmed that yes, the patient's musculature was relaxing a little. Panic gushed up into the nurse's throat, the alien momentarily convinced that it was a sign that Jack Driscoll was giving up for a second time. But no.

There was no worrisome change with his vital signs, no blaring alarm. Relived, Logan-Zag decided to continue on his rounds. Later, after talking with Doctor Zhong, the Nidian would be amazed to discover that much of the tension had drained out from Jack's body at roughly the same time the surgeon had proposed the two fiber-optic links as a way for Ann to remotely check on the writer. It was almost as if he'd subconsciously known that his girlfriend would be allowed to watch over him in some fashion, and was greatly comforted.

* * *

**As before, read and review, if you please!**


	33. Rafiki Copes Pt 1: Revelation

**Hey there again to everyone in Readerland! In this chapter and the next, I'm briefly stepping away from our convalescing Jack and Ann to check up what's been going on in the Pridelands immediately after Rafiki and Mganga sent them to Sector 12 General Hospital. Of all the characters in The Lion King, I find Scar and Rafiki among the hardest to accurately capture. I hope I managed to succeed!**

* * *

"_The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution_." _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_ by J. K. Rowling, 1997.

"_Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion…walked, and the lion's whelp, and none made them afraid_?" Namuh 2:11, King James Bible.

He kills the victim and walks in his funeral!-Egyptian Proverb.

Rafiki watched with Mganga as the wormhole they'd brought into being, swirling like a dust devil, encompassed a fearful Ann Darrow along with Jack. A rip in the very fabric of space-time itself took a vast amount of energy to create and maintain, to say nothing of being just as much a potential danger to their piece of the multiverse as a "foreigner" dying in a different universe, and both shamans knew they had to seal it promptly-indeed, Mganga was already preparing to do so.

Still, there was one last piece of the puzzle that Rafiki desperately needed to know, and he asked Ann, "Miss Darrow, do you have any idea who sent dat leopard to kill de two of you, and why? And everyding will be okay," he tacked on for the sake of reassurance.

What the mwanamke stated next, her voice steeped in fury, made the mandrill feel like his entire world had lurched out from its bed. "Yes. It was Scar Rafiki. And he did it because we saw him _murder_ poor Mufasa, and he couldn't let us live," she angrily, bitterly responded. Then even her voice was gone.

"No way! You poor things!" Mganga shouted in horror. "Scar went _that_ far, went and committed regicide against his own blood? I can't believe it!"

For several beats of his heart, Rafiki could say nothing, paying no attention even to the immediate task of shutting the wormhole. He felt as if he'd taken a blow from an elephant's trunk. Emotions swarmed inside his brain and body like a hive of bees. The shaman was appalled, mad, disbelieving, disgusted, flabbergasted, and above all, consumed by questions.

The great, wise Mufasa, the king and good friend Rafiki had advised, played with, conducted ceremonies for, talked and laughed with, shared news and memories with, watched grow up, now gone forever, unfeelingly killed by his stony, slyer than he'd thought brother? Just not possible-and yet, Ann _had _said it with feeling and sincerity. The very idea hurt Rafiki like he'd been snakebitten.

But how could Scar have pulled it off? Probably by trickery of some sort, maybe outside help, or a combination of both, he concluded, since there was no way Scar could've ever bested his brother in a fair fight.

The aged mandrill glanced at Mganga, and realized from her expression that their thoughts were traveling along the same lines. He also realized with some startled chagrin that they were both still bathed by the emerald light of the space-time portal.

"Mganga?" he lightly barked. "De portal?"

Snapping out of it, the colobus cried "Oh yeah! Dear Ngai, let's get that done with first before yet another catastrophe takes place!"

Quickly, they recited the words to a sealing spell, Rafki wrapping the matter up by flicking his staff squarely at the wormhole's center, gourds clattering. Like a carcass slowly mummifying in baking heat, the channel between two universes slowly shrunk and collapsed inward, the green glow receding until only moonlight bathed the healing tree.

When it was done, the Mzima Pride's shaman leaned against his staff, giving a sigh. "And dat," he declared, more to himself than Mganga, "is de last time I shall have **anyting** to do with alternate universes for _quite _a long while."

"Good thing you learned your lesson," the colobus dryly commented. "It's just too bad you couldn't keep an aberrant human that _**you**_ were responsible for putting into this universe from coming to grievous harm at a leopard's claws."

Remorseful and yet annoyed, the mandrill replied, "Enough, Mganga. I feel bad enough right now wid'out you getting into the act. And how was I supposed to know, even wit magic, what that jackal Scar had planned for dem? I made a mistake wit my looking-glass spell last morning, and I'm sorry."

Mganga's severe expression softened somewhat, and she conceded, "You're right, and I apologize for being harsh like that. But Rafiki, it's just that if Jack dies and an instability rift is created, and _then_ becomes a singularity, it'll most likely happen in a place where a wormhole has already previously been created-like here in this tree. Can you blame me for being scared and maybe just slightly irritated too?"

"Not at all my friend," he responded. "As you said, de worst ding that could happen from Jack's death is dat a multiversal-scale black hole could develop. I have de feeling t'ough, dat Ngai himself would battle to keep dat from happening. Besides, Mr. Driscoll should have a dery good chance now that he's under de care of de doctors at Sector 12 General Hospital. An extremely wise choice on your part!"

"I appreciate that. Yeah, they should be able to fix him up just fine," she agreed, running her fingers through her moon-silvered hair. "And speaking of looking-glass spells, have you ever watched the sinking of the Titanic Rafiki? Such a tragic thing," she sighed, shaking her head mournfully.

"Yes, I have."

"Then you probably saw how the ship's band stayed on deck, playing their instruments right up until the boat tilted."

"Certainly. Dere was something pathetic, yet noble about dat."

"Tell me about it. Anyhow, I guess that regardless of whether Jack dies outside his universe or not, or the damage it would cause, the best thing we can do is be like those musicians."

"Yes," Rafiki agreed. "Just keep on being witch doctors and don't upset anyone. All de same Mganga, I'd like you to contact de healers in neighboring kingdoms for me. Tell dem about what happened with de humans-but mention **not'ing** about Scar!-and have them take up places on de border of t'eir respective kingdom as close to de Mzima Pride's lands as possible. If t'ings go bad, all of us working toged'er wit' our magic might still be able to turn dem around-or at least buy time."

"Heh, say no more," the colobus replied. "I'll do it first thing tomorrow. But how long should I have the other healers be prepared and ready for action though?"

"Tell dem, three, four days," Rafiki answered after pondering for a few moments. "Meanwhile," he disconsolately added, rising to his feet and grasping his magic staff, "I must go back and deal wit' a disaster much closer to home. Scar is one suspicious beast as you know, and if he is now king, he'll wonder sooner or later why I'm not around."

"Yeah, you'd best be off," Mganga nodded.

Silently, the mandrill loped to the edge in two strides, and did an about face, preparing to lower himself down the trunk. Before he could though, Mganga, checkered moonlight sparkling on her shaggy coat, said softly, "Rafiki?"

"What, Mganga?"

"If it turns out to be the real deal…then I just want to tell you I'm so sorry. He _didn't _deserve that."

"I tank you for your condolences Mganga. No, and I just hope I can find a way to pull de pride through t'is and dat Scar does not become too difficult or self-absorbed," he sighed helplessly.

"Unlikely, but no matter how bad things get with him, just keep remembering that the rotten branches have a tendency to fall," she reassured. "Salvation will come when and from where you least expect it, if I'm any judge of these things."

"Yes, de path of a liar is short," Rafiki replied. "_Haya_, Mganga," he dismissed, before backing down the greenheart's trunk until dead leaves brushed his foot pads.

Mbathi was there to greet him, horns gleaming like great silver daggers in the moonlight. Rhinos may have feeble eyesight, but they make up for it with excellent hearing, and Mbathi's horsey ears had picked up some of the conversation in the greenheart.

Opening his squarish mouth, the bull rhino asked in shock, "Did I just hear what I thought I heard? Did Scar _really_-"

"Shhh!" Rafiki commanded, clamping Mbathi's lips shut. Reflecting on it later, the mandrill was grateful indeed that with his formidable bulk and weaponry, the white rhino hadn't taken umbrage at such an audacious act!

"Yes, it seems that way," the shaman breathily, harshly whispered. "But don't you even _tink_ about telling _any_ other creature about it, no matter how tempting it is. Otherwise, it **will** reach Scar's ears sooner ratter t'an later, and t'en either my life or someone else's will be worth less tan _noting_!" the mandrill lightly barked, crossing his arms and then spreading them apart for emphasis in a quick, flicking motion.

"I promise on the lives of all my calves that I'll keep as silent about it as old bones, Rafiki," Mbathi sincerely assured the mandrill as he slung himself back over the bull's hulking shoulders. Rafiki knew that for a rhino bull to swear by the lives of his offspring was a profound declaration of loyalty indeed, and it greatly alleviated his worries. Besides, rhinos weren't like vervet monkeys or elephants, forever gossiping and unable to keep a secret if their lives depended on it. They simply observed and listened.

"Dat is good. Right now though, take me out of here and back to de gorge," he requested.

"Sure thing, great teacher," the white rhino said before once more breaking into that deceptively nimble gallop.

Like a black, scabbed-over wound, the gorge stretched out in the moonlight before Rafiki as Mbathi drew closer. The mandrill shaman was sick with fear about what he might find down there.

When they were about three quarters of a mile away from it, he abruptly commanded the rhino to halt.

"Tank you dery much Mbathi," he told his friend, dismounting. "I'm going to go de rest of de way by myself now. If Scar is about and saw me riding you, he would have cause to ask questions."

Nodding his barrel head in understanding and agreement, Mbathi replied, "Just as well, far as I'm concerned. I might have horns like stone spikes and be almost thrice the size of an old buffalo bull, but…well, I really don't like to smell spilled blood and death any more than I have to. What can I say, it's an herbivore thing," he shrugged.

"I know dat. And speaking of which, you'd best find yourself a wallow and get Jack's blood off of you," he suggested.

"Looking forward to it. Before I do though, I just want to tell you something Rafiki."

"What?" he said, growing a bit nervous and impatient, citron eyes flicking in the chasm's direction.

"We rhinos," Mbathi confided, "have been a part of the Circle of Life for a very long time. During that time, we've seen whole species come-and leave. We've seen the entire world itself change, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in an awful one. We've been around even before the lions themselves walked these plains, and have seen many, many kings come and go. Throughout it all, we've come to learn one simple truth."

Pausing briefly for emphasis, the rhino said, "It is that rain always comes after a drought, and that the night is always at its darkest shortly before the dawn breaks."

"Dat is dery true," the shaman agreed. "I will remember dat and tell de others later so dey can take heart from it."

"If you ever need someone to talk to," the white rhino kindly offered, "send me a message by the oxpeckers and I'll gallop over." Then, wheeling like a rodeo horse, Mbathi turned southward and cantered away.

Rafiki briefly watched him go, and then turned away himself, steeling himself to face what awaited him down in the gorge and back in the Pridelands.

Even if he hadn't known the Mzima Pride's turf like the back of his forepaw, finding his way back to the site of that bloody, desperate clash between Jack and Nduli wouldn't exactly have been rocket science. All he had to do was home in on the jackal snarls and the spot where a sprinkling of vultures was spiraling down to earth like ebony kites. An incredible occurrence, but not an unknown one, as Rafiki was aware.

Like hawks or eagles, vultures are almost exclusively diurnal birds. Their literally telescopic vision is at peak performance during the day, able to see the flies on a corpse from almost a mile up, but is even poorer than our own at night. In addition to that handicap, the cooler nighttime temperatures prevent the formation of the thermals which the birds use to effortlessly soar across the landscape, forcing a vulture to rely on the more tiring method of flapping to get around.

As a result, vultures can usually be counted on to take up a perch in the crown of a wild olive or acacia, or glide over to a nice tall escarpment or kopje, tuck their naked heads into their shoulder feathers, and go to sleep when the sun vanishes.

Sometimes though, if there's starlight and a bit of moon to see by, the carcass is in an open area, the vulture picks up the sounds of a struggle, is willing to undergo the chore of flapping and feels hungry enough-well, it just might drop by with some of its friends for a late dinner.

As he approached within range of the slain leopard tom, the witch doctor baboon briefly stopped to regard the hunchbacked birds as they greedily thrust their heads into the cat's chest and belly, croaking and gabbling, colorless gore smearing their heads and beaks in the moonlight like grape jelly. Some used the broken spear ends as ghastly perches while they fed, forms distorted and made even creepier than usual by the moonbeams. A silverbacked jackal vixen tore at the stocky spangled hindquarters, occasionally snapping and snarling at the birds with a cry of "Get the hell away, you hideous punks!"

Seeing the mandrill walking up to the carcass, the jackal raised her head and briefly locked eyes with him, casually grunting, "Oh, hello shaman," before diverting her entire attention back to feeding. The vultures gabbled and hopped-fluttered a short distance away from the body waiting.

Rafiki wasn't worried about the scavengers seeing him in this part of the savanna. As long as there were carcasses to eat and water to drink, the political machinations in a pride or even disturbances to the Circle itself were all one to a jackal or a vulture.

With the smell of the cat in his nostrils and the knowledge of the unspeakable agony he'd chosen to inflict on poor Mr. Driscoll-gleefully!-the shaman couldn't help baring his great canines in a yawn and slapping the ground, then Nduli's head in a gesture that was both part instinctual threat, partly a sign of spiteful contempt, before striding on to the closest side ravine. The jackal grinned and nodded knowingly, uttering a harsh, quick, hellish laugh of approval, for leopards killed and ate her kind too, whenever they could.

"Yeah, and that's why his makoko are going to be my next course in a bit," she sneered devilishly.

Ignoring her, he left the cleanup team to their dinner and located a side channel, eroded down into the main gorge long ago.

Using his staff for support as he picked his way over the broken rock, the shaman smelt an ever growing odor of dust and dung. Even in the comparatively darker lighting of the gorge, he could still see enough evidence to tell the horrid tale of what had recently happened here. Two yearling wildebeest lying apart from each other, dead in the dust, the belly of one torn and gnawed. The cloven, overlapping hoofprints of wildebeest everywhere, so many of them that the sand and dust on the gorge's floor looked like the mud around a waterhole at the end of the dry season. _Oh __**no**_, the witch doctor thought, horror welling up inside him as he put the pieces together and picked up his pace.

Further down the gorge there was something sprawled in the dust, a big creature lying in shadow, legs facing away from him, that seemed to have a mane covering its nape and shoulders. Steeling himself, Rafiki drew closer, and then realized that it was a dead wildebeest bull who'd apparently hurt his foreleg in the stampede somehow, and then been trampled to death by his fellows.

Moving on, something else caught his gaze. It was a dead, broken tree, forming a crude triangle. Below it was something that looked at first glance to be a large, smooth, shapeless rock in the transforming, teasing play of moonlight and shadow. Drawing nearer, it then registered with Rafiki that what he was looking at was no rock. It was the body of yet another large animal. He prayed against hope that, like before, it was merely yet another wildebeest lying dead.

And then he saw Mbili, the gentle Egyptian fruit bat, clinging to the form's flank, embracing it with his wings as tears flowed down his dog muzzle. He saw the huge padded feet and the thick, regal mane, the proud countenance.

Despite Ann's sincerity and conviction, there had still remained a miniscule, desperately optimistic part of him that wouldn't believe Mufasa was dead until he actually saw a body. Well, here was that cruel evidence.

His sensitive ears detecting the clacking of the gourds and the shaman's footfalls, the tearful fruit bat raised his head and looked at the mandrill, a surprised, mildly nervous expression on his features before he realized that it was a welcome friend approaching him, and not a predator.

"So you've heard too Rafiki, huh?" Mbili sobbed in that squeaky voice. "Oh great moon and stars, Mufasa's dead! What are we going to do Rafiki?" he lamented. "He's the only king I've ever known or served, and now he's gone!"

"I do not know, but first let me check to see if he's just senseless," the mandrill proposed. "Lions are dery tough after all."

Taking up his stick and turning it around, Rafiki carefully prodded at his king's left eye socket with the butt, half-anticipating the involuntary blink that would mean the lion still lived. But there was none, and Mufasa's chest failed to rise, no matter how much the shaman willed it to be so. Putting the staff down and pressing his hands against those coiled shoulders, he gave Mufasa a few firm, jiggling shoves, begging, "My king and friend Mufasa, please arise. Your pride and family need you back at home!"

But there was no response, and then the mandrill knew that the lion king would never return to Pride Rock again. A dreamlike feeling of helpless disbelief trickled through Rafiki then, and he dully sat back down. All the emotions he'd felt after hearing Ann spill the eggs came back once more, only thrice as powerful now that the cold hard truth was irrevocably sprawled out in front of him. Normally so in control of his emotions, even he couldn't stop himself from suddenly uttering a shriek, a sort of "gyaa" sound, and dropping his staff while he got to his feet and slapped the stone thrice with both of his powerful forelimbs, as mandrills tend to do when distressed.

The witch doctor knew that there were all sorts of ways lions could perish in this unforgiving land. Many simply starved to death. Others received horrific and ultimately mortal wounds in battles with lions from other prides. Sometimes they got zapped by cobras or puff adders and never recovered. They got gored by the lethal horns of Cape buffalo or sable antelope, the tusks of warthogs or bush pigs, had their skulls caved in by a giraffe's hooves. Some came down with illnesses or were brought down by parasites like the tick-borne Babesia leo, which is thought to have killed the lioness Elsa.

Sad as they all were, it was all just part of the Grand Circle. If Mufasa had died in one of those ways, it would've been no less awful, every bit as tragic, but at least there would've been a dignity to it, at least it would've been understandable. To be so callously, treacherously killed by his own brother though, the very lion who was supposed to support and help him out, should always be trusted…it was obscene and despicable.

"See?" Mbili whispered vapidly. "I didn't want it to be true either, but it is anyhow."

"What a disaster," Rafiki sighed, wagging his head, wiping at tears with the back of his hand. "How did you find out about this Mbili?"

"Well, I'd woken up with the rest of my colony and doing my grooming routine when this Hildebrant's horseshoe bat flew over and perched next to me. She said that Ndugu had seen her and asked her to find me, and then tell me that Scar had just called the entire pride to an emergency meeting, and wanted me there as well."

That piqued Rafiki's interest. "Ndugu sent a random stranger to tell you dat? But wouldn't Zazu normally be de one to do d'at?"

"Yes, but he wasn't around," Mbili replied. "No one knows where he's gone off to at _all_, in fact-or at least, I don't. For that matter, no one's seen Ann or Jack either-which is weird, because they don't know the place all that well yet, and wouldn't go wandering around the Pridelands at night."

The shaman knew full well where the humans were of course, but said nothing. His immediate, growing concern now was that Zazu himself might be among the dead. Everyone knew that the hornbill was fiercely loyal to Mufasa, and truly liked to spend time with his king. Had Zazu seen too much during this catastrophe? Had the majordomo tried to stop Scar somehow and paid with his life? If Scar hadn't done it himself…well, if that chunk of buffalo dung was in cahoots with a leopard tom, he might be in touch with a tawny eagle or other bird of prey too for all the mandrill knew.

Suddenly, from above and behind them there was a wretched, disbelieving gasp.

Looking over his shoulder, Rafiki saw a panic-stricken Zazu hovering overhead, moaning, "Oh sire, no."

"Well, speak of the python and it will appear," Mbili said with a melancholic thoughtfulness on seeing the daytime advisor. Alighting on the thin part of the broken tree, his plumage silvered by the moon, Zazu ignored him, his body seeming to wither as he gazed at his king's still form.

Oblivious of the other two, Zazu plunged down into Mufasa's mane and nipped him on an ear-hard. It was almost as bad seeing the bitter realization sweep across the bird's face for Rafiki as it had been for it to sink in with him minutes before.

Meeting Rafiki's eyes, the hornbill querulously begged-hoped-pleaded, "He's not dead, is he? Please tell me no Rafiki."

"I'm so dery sorry, but he's gone my friend," the shaman forced himself to say as tears flowed from the bird's eyes, Mbili offering what mutual comfort he could by nuzzling and grooming.

After pulling himself together a little, Zazu rubbed his head and closed his tearful eyes as he pragmatically asked, "Does Sarabi know about this?"

"Yeah," Mbili confirmed. "She's on her way over right now." Giving a pity-drenched sigh, the bat shook his head before saying, "If we think _we_ feel horrible, that's nothing at all compared to how devastated **she** must be. I mean jeez, to lose your husband **and** your son both in one fell-"

"Wait a moment!" Zazu shouted, holding up a wing. "Are you telling me old chap, that Simba's dead too?"

"What! Simba?" the baboon gaped in equal horror.

"That's what Scar said when he came back to Pride Rock," Mbili replied, "and I have no cause to doubt him. He said that Ann and Jack both got killed in this stampede too-although I don't see or smell their bodies anywhere about."

"But I was here, and I saw Mufasa jumping into the stampede to get Simba before I flew into the gorge's side and knocked myself out!" the hornbill protested. "Surely Mufasa would've gotten him out in a twinkling."

"How in de world did you manage to knock yourself out?" Rafiki asked.

"It was rather queer," Zazu admitted, rubbing his head against the shaman's stick to soothe the ache in his head. "I felt rather useless watching Mufasa battle his way through all those bloody wildebeest down there, so I decided to rush back to Pride Rock and get Sarabi, maybe some of the other lionesses, as a way of helping out. Well, I suppose I was either so focused on my objective or just a bit too worked up to pay attention, and at any rate whacked my noggin on the stone. Just goes to show what happens when you get too emotionally involved."

_Scar's doing as well_, the shaman thought as Mbilli reassured Zazu, "Well, you did your best Zazu. I'm just glad we didn't lose you too."

"Yes," Rafiki nodded. "De important thing is dat you are still wit us." _And that Scar decided that you weren't nearly as expendable as the others._ One lucky bird indeed.

But Mother of Ngai, what a horror all the same! Mufasa dead, Simba dead, Jack at the edge of it. Death everywhere, and all of it because of Scar's jealousy and lust for power.

_If only I'd known,_ Rafiki thought despairingly, guiltily. _How could I not have noticed?_ Surely, such an intricate scheme couldn't be perfectly, absolutely hidden from view-at least, not to the alert beast. That was the problem though. Scar knew all about being alert and wary and picking up on clues himself.

It was all clear as a spring's water to Rafiki now. Scar had convinced Simba and the two humans to come to the gorge with him, possibly on the pretext of meeting Mufasa there and/or bringing Ann and Jack along to watch over the cub in the interim.

Meanwhile, Nduli must've been crouching in cover somewhere on the plain above the head of the gorge, near the hind edge of the wildebeest herd. When Scar showed up, the leopard had then flown at the wildebeest, panicking them and driving the animals pell-mell down the length of the chasm, forcing Simba and the humans to run for their lives.

As all this was taking place, Scar, feigning terror, found Mufasa and told him the news about how his son was now in such danger. _Ah Scar_, he thought, _you conniving scorpion, you used a father's love as your most powerful weapon!_

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the sound of great paws pounding across the dust-mantled rock, and a heartfelt, half-roared "**NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!**" of anguish.

"Oh, this is not going to be fun," Zazu whispered as the shaman turned to see Sarabi racing toward their little group of mourners, the distraught lion queen gulping down the distance with every stride. They stepped aside as she reached her mate's body, everyone silent as she stepped forward.

The lioness extended her head, inhaling optimistically of Mufasa's fur. Suddenly she jumped back several feet, her eyes wide as she showed her teeth in a hissing snarl of shocked terror, like a housecat will do when a scent disturbs or scares it. It clearly told her all the grim facts she needed to know.

Sarabi went to pieces then, as if the lion queen had been a marionette whose strings had just been slashed. Moaning and sobbing uncontrollably, she groaned, "Oh Mufasa why? Why did Ngai have to take you so soon? And Simba too, before I could even watch my son grow up? How will we go on?"

Rolling onto her tawny bodybuilder's back, she fiercely pressed her head into her lord and mate's mane as she adopted a posture of despairing, helpless submission before the stars, where all four knew that the sprit of the lion before them had already fled to. "Oh Ngai, how could you take my mate and son away in one day? And our friends Ann and Jack too? Why, why, why, what did we do to warrant this? No!"

Turning her head to the side, the anguished lioness began to weep and moan again. A lump the size of an ostrich egg in his throat, Rafiki tenderly stroked her flank while Mbili and Zazu each did the same with one of her paws. No one dared commit the crass act of impeding on her grief with the clumsy spoken word.

It was only when Sarabi, after a few devastated minutes, pulled herself into a seated position that Zazu softly assured his queen, "It'll be all right Sarabi. We're here for you."

"We'll all help you and the o'ters get through dis," Rafiki comforted.

"That's right," Mbili nodded, licking her paw.

"Thank you so much you guys," Sarabi said shakily. "When Scar came in all panting and downcast like that and told us Simba, Mufasa, Ann, and Jack were all dead, I couldn't believe that such a colossal tragedy had happened, so I wouldn't until I saw the truth with my own eyes. Now, I just can't comprehend it," the lion queen pathetically added, head hung in grief.

"But I don't get something," Zazu said in confusion. "You and Mbili seem to have it on good authority from Scar that Simba and the humans are dead, but I don't see their bodies anywhere in this gorge or one of the side gullies either. Have you, Rafiki?"

"Not a hair," the mandrill lied in regards to the humans, while suspecting that the cub's body was almost certainly now in the walleyed leopard tom's belly.

Their words totally galvanized Sarabi. In three seconds flat, she went from despondent to graspingly eager. Supreme worry and frail hope flooded her features as leapt she to her paws and cried, "Maybe Simba's still alive then! Maybe he's just lying unconscious somewhere among the rocks! Mbili, use your nose and your echolocation. Check any crevice he could squeeze into. I'll search the length of the gorge," the lioness commanded.

"Right on it," the fruit bat replied, springing up into the cooling night air with a leathery slapping of wings. As he flew or crawled into every sizeable crevice, clicking his tongue to produce an auditory map of the interior and sniffing deeply for any trace of his prince's scent, Rafiki looked on sadly with Zazu as Sarabi frantically raced around the gorge looking for her cub.

"Where are you Simba? Answer me!" she huskily called out. "Merciful Ngai, where are you? Simba!" Now and again, the lion queen would come to a stop and, head outthrust, flanks pumping with the effort, her lips slightly parted, go into a series of urgency infused, ululating, grunting roars, stopping with pricked ears to listen for any response from her son. But in vain.

Finally, she staggered back to her mate's body and collapsed, crying and moaning even more bitterly than before. An utterly crestfallen Mbili returned as well, reluctantly telling his queen as he landed before her, "Forgive me your highness, but I was unable to find any sign of Simba, even though I searched meticulously."

"That's okay Mbili," she vacantly mumbled.

It was too much for Rafiki to stand, and he averted his gaze. Then, he heard the paws of another lion making contact with the rock, a lion larger than Sarabi, approaching them at a casual trot. The shaman saw the eyes glowing in the moonlight and sprung to his feet, muscles tensing as he gripped his staff.

Was this a nomadic male coming toward them? With the gorge not far from the Mzima Pride's western boundary, it was quite probable. Bad news traveled fast in the bush too, and perhaps a group of wageni males had already heard about Mufasa's death and were now taking over, with one of them coming over to check out his new queen!

But as the male came closer in the darkness, Rafiki realized it was Scar. Scar the shrewd, remorseless murderer, wearing that same crafty, inscrutable stare that made Rafiki privately go from hesitant to furious in half a second. Hardly any better.

"There you are Sarabi, just where I thought I'd find you," he said. "And with a few fellow mourners for company too," he added, thoughtfully giving the baboon and both majordomos a brief, sweeping glance. Sarabi turned to look at him, eyes brimming.

Foxing sympathy, Scar half-condescendingly nodded as he said, "Oh, I know Sarabi. What an inconceivable blow, what an _atrocious_ loss we suffer! Still, Mufasa would want us to carry on, and as his brother, it is now my obligation to fill in this horrid void as the pride's new ruler."

"So much has been ripped away from me today Scar," the lion queen despondently commented. "I don't know how I can even start to cope."

"Well, the best way to do that is to know that you still have a pathfinder, a leader," Scar replied. "So you and your servants must leave this place now Sarabi, and return to Pride Rock. There I shall take his place and, with a hole in my soul, tell you all how this _woeful_ catastrophe unfolded," the lion wearing a mock expression of hangdog distress.

The lioness made no reply other than a puffing sigh as she got to her paws. Giving Mufasa's body one last, reluctant, tender backwards glance, she followed Scar as he went to another side gully and climbed up it onto the plains. Silently.

Rafiki took up a discrete position behind her, far enough away that Sarabi wouldn't perceive him as being intrusive, but close enough that she would also feel watched over, loved and comforted. He had the feeling he'd be doing plenty of the same in the future too.

Mbili fluttered to his staff and hung upside down from the top end, securing himself with his needle sharp wingclaws. Zazu landed on the small of Sarabi's back and nestled in.

It was a lonely, brooding, melancholic journey back home. Sarabi walked as if in a daze, tail drooping, her forehead still tight with anguish, still giving the odd groan or sniffle. Rafiki knew that it would be quite a while indeed before the lioness could even start to come to terms with her loss. He knew that Scar was aware of her grief as well, but unsurprisingly didn't bother to even pretend he cared. He just strutted along, head erect, already supreme ruler in his mind, and it silently infuriated the shaman all the more.

As the little party of five got within view of Pride Rock, Sarabi abruptly came to a halt and began to sway uncertainly back and forth, like a lion that is torn between fleeing and attacking in defense, the silver light only accenting her drained, washed-out demeanor. This internal conflict though, was between a different set of impulses.

Concerned, Rafiki drew closer, asking, "Your majesty, what's wrong?" Scar, for his part, remained in place, silently, coolly glaring at her with an expression of irritation mingled with contempt, as if the lion queen was nothing more than a jackal trying to horn in on his meal.

"I-I really can't say Rafiki," she replied indecisively, distantly looking over her shoulder. "I just suddenly had this powerful feeling for some reason that Simba's still alive out there, and if I just go back and search harder, especially towards the west, I'll find him again."

At that, Scar scoffed-scoffed, for Ngai's sake!-coldly telling the distraught mother, "Simba is as dead as a fish in a drought Sarabi. I watched it happen, and you'd best come along now if you want to hear the account and don't want to look like a fool in front of your pride by being absent when I take the throne. That's not a request either," he heartlessly amended as he began to stride on.

Just everyone else, Rafiki felt his jaw plummet in disbelief at such an outrageous display of callousness by the male lion. Rage and disgust came half a second later, and the mandrill might well have made the fatal mistake of revealing his secret about Scar in a tirade if Mbili hadn't blown up first.

Soft eyes unexpectedly narrowing, the Egyptian fruit bat's hackles rose as he screeched, "How dare you say that to one of your fellow pride members Scar! Can't you even find the godsdammed decency to help your brother's queen out and comfort her while she's grieving, you son of a croco-Whoa!!"

Mbili never got to finish his admonishment, for Scar abruptly wheeled around with a spine-tingling growl and rushed at them, curving around Sarabi who made a brief attempt to block him as the bat vaulted off Rafiki's staff and off to the right, flapping like mad to gain altitude. With a roar, Scar leapt at the "nighttime" majordomo, almost grazing the terrified bat with unsheathed claws as Sarabi yelled, "Scar, stop it!"

Ignoring her, the black-maned lion landed in a crouch, and then stood up, tail lashing as he gave the bat a hateful stare before declaring, "You will never speak like that to your king again if you expect to keep your job or your life. And just so you know you flying rat, I feel this loss more acutely than you know! But I must be _**strong**_ as the new king and face it bravely, so that everyone can have confidence in my ability to rule-including over my emotions," he faked before turning to move on.

_What a pile of elephant shit you are,_ Rafiki thought. _You have __the gall__ not only to cause your victims pain and death without the decency of challenging them to a fair fight, but then insult them further by pretending like you actually found it all to be regrettable, you son of four bushpigs!_

Sarabi was crying again, and Rafiki came up alongside her, Mbili and Zazu landing on her back.

"I'm sorry that that utter prat said such a despicable thing, Your Majesty," the hornbill consoled.

"What a selfish, insensitive brute," the lioness said through her clenched teeth. "How could he?"

Shaking his head sadly, Rafiki sighed before stating, "Clearly, he will be a difficult king to live under, so you must be even stronger now as queen if there is to be any hope of keeping him in check."

"I hope I can be guys," Sarabi replied. "I hope responsibility and humility will grow on him, and sooner rather than later."

"Perhaps it will. But even if it doesn't," Zazu vowed, "whatever decisions he makes, however beastly and self-centered his behavior may become, always remember that we'll support you and keep Mufasa's memory alive, no matter what."

"Dat's right," the shaman agreed. "You have friends in us."

"Hear, hear," Mbili chimed in as a fleeting smile flowed over Sarabi's glum face. "We'll keep our chins up and get by."

"Thank you, my friends. That means a great deal to me," she professed.

Now they were close enough to Pride Rock to see the great stone ledge, and Scar ran forward with a hardly disguised eagerness, Rafiki and Sarabi running to catch up. As he came within a quarter mile of the granite fortress, Scar's pace slowed to a walk, and he adopted a suitably grave expression for the benefit of the other lionesses.

As they strolled up to Pride Rock, Rafiki saw that all the rest of the pride was still gathered there, waiting for their queen and new murderer king. All of them were visibly affected by the loss of Mufasa and Simba.

Sarafina licked and nuzzled an inconsolable, devastated Nala. Chauski wandered around in a state of shock, whispering, "All four of them dead. All four of them." Ndugu sat listlessly, staring off into space with her limbs sprawled out. Masega licked a morose Purupuru's face.

Scar hummed for a few seconds, both to get everyone's attention and to add to the repulsive illusion that he actually cared. Snapping out of their little bubbles of grief for a moment, all the lionesses glanced at him and Sarabi.

"Looks like you're back Sarabi," Masega gently commented, coming forward to rub her head against the other lioness.

"I know this might not be in good taste," Ndugu cautiously put forward, "but Mufasa's body…it wasn't…pulped up, was it?"

"No, thank Ngai," Sarabi answered, shaking her head. "At least my mate had that much dignity in death."

"I'm sure you all have many questions," Scar rudely interjected, "but first I shall answer some of them myself by giving you all an account of what I witnessed and what occurred on this most tragic of days before taking my place as your new king." Walking over to the partly buried, tilted slab of rock to the right side of the massive platform, he took up a perch on the upper cusp, like a sly, scheming vulture, as all the lionesses, Nala, and Zazu gathered in a loose semicircle. Mbili for his part, caught a little ribbon of stone on the shadow-smothered underside of Pride Rock with his foot claws, and hung suspended, listening.

Hanging in the background, Rafiki realized with disgust that he wanted none of it. He didn't want to hear this killer, this insect, this coward, this shetani in lion's form spout his lies. He didn't want to hear Scar lie through his teeth about how the deaths truly weighed on him every bit as much as they did to the others. He didn't want to hear Scar pin the blame on an accident of fate or the wildebeest or the humans or Simba himself when it was his own cold-blooded, selfish desire for power at any price that had led to this suffering and destruction. He didn't want to hear evil speak.

Several hundred yards away, there was a sort of small, gently rounded ridge from which a scattering of boulders peeked through the grass. Discretely yet casually, the shaman loped over across the Rhodes grass and seated himself on a boulder about the size of a rhino's head.

Paying no attention to what snatches of Scar's deceptive monologue drifted over to his ears, the mandrill sighed dejectedly, half embracing his magic staff with his right arm. He felt so supremely lonely and impotent and heartsick.

His friend Mufasa, that wise, cordial lion was dead. And Simba, that mischievous cub, so full of life and potential, who no doubt would've grown into a superb king, husband, and father one day. Cut down before he could even begin to shine. Rafiki grieved that he hadn't picked up on Scar's scheme, and that he hadn't been there at the gorge to at least save Simba and possibly spare Jack and Ann the suffering visited on them by Nduli.

The shaman possessed a shocking secret that if handled right, could avenge all four of them. If he went over there right now, and told the unspeakable truth, the lionesses might well turn on Scar, eleven to one, and cast him out, maybe even fatally wound him.

But would they believe it? And were the costs worth it? Scar was the most persuasive lion Rafiki had ever known, and he could easily cultivate doubt by claiming that their shaman was hysterical, or messed up in the head from all the ceremonial drugs he took, or was becoming senile, among other possibilities.

However Scar chose to respond though, the resulting incident would culminate in the new king permanently banishing him from the Pridelands at best, killing him personally at worst. Either way, he wouldn't be of any good to the Mzima Pride and The Circle during this sure-to-be-trying time.

The thought made the mandrill reach inside his mouth and feel of his dagger canines, impressive as any lion's. Mwaguzi too, had taught him more than a few things about stick fighting and kung fu as an apprentice. Despite his advanced age, the shaman was also fully aware that, just like so many other primates, his muscles were far denser and more powerful then many observers casually assumed.

Yes, he could do plenty of damage if need be. But would it be enough to best Scar-or kill him-in a one on one fight? Maybe. Maybe not.

Rafiki didn't know, and he wasn't going to try to find out. No, the best way he could help out now was just to put on a brave face, do whatever he could to help the pride weather Scar's reign and keep their spirits up, and continue to influence the Grand Circle so that things went on favorably in the Pridelands. Until the day came when another male lion, young, brave, and eager for conquest, chose or could be persuaded to challenge Scar, and they'd have a decent ruler again.

Caught up in his unhappy thoughts, the witch doctor realized that Scar's bogus rendition of the stampede was coming to a close. "I wish with all my heart that I could've delivered just one of them from death," the lion theatrically lamented, "but it was beyond my power to do so."

His voice grave and convincingly dismal, Scar droned, "Mufasa's death was a terrible tragedy. But to lose poor Simba, who had barely begun to live. And although we never got to know them well, our newfound friends Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow, two extraordinary creatures and heroes who accomplished and endured so much, only to perish in such an unfair manner. For me, it is a deep, personal loss." the lion added, putting his enormous paw over his face in feigned sorrow.

The rest of the pride's grief though, was not forced in the least. Even at this distance and in the darkness, Rafiki could see a glum-faced Zazu extending a commiserating wing across Sarabi's paws, her head lowered and eyes clenched in what had to be nigh-unendurable pain as her sister Ndugu and a couple other lionesses gently comforted her with head-rubbing. She looked like the very framework of her world had fallen apart.

He also saw Nala standing underneath Sarafina, leaning against her mother's leg, and even though he was too far away to see, the shaman knew she was shedding tears for Simba and her kind human friends. Even worse, he also knew that it was the first time the cub had experienced another lion's death.

"So it is with a heavy heart that I assume the throne," Scar went on, with just the smallest suggestion of a sigh accompanying his words. Then, Scar switched tack, a growing anticipation and confidence creeping into his voice as he announced, "Yet out of the ashes of this tragedy, we shall rise to _greet, the dawning of a new era…_"

As the usurper began his inspirational message, a demented sound, a sound that did not belong in the Pridelands perforated the cold night air like a shark's teeth through a fish's flesh. It was the swelling, lunatic cackling of several spotted hyenas, and it galvanized Rafiki's shocked attention like a cobra's hiss at his leg. What was happening? Had the hyenas of the Graveyard Clan gotten news of Mufasa's death and made up their minds to drive the lions out from the Pridelands. Possible, but not likely. Spotted hyenas are formidable in numbers, but don't really have the strong "team spirit" or ability to form an effective cooperative offense or defense like painted dogs, lions, or wolves do.

Then the mandrill saw Scar's nonchalant, fearless demeanor, even as the eerie shadows of the hyenas expanded like gigantic, terrible blossoms on the stone of Pride Rock, and their makers themselves now came into view, skulking down the natural path that curved up and to the right, eyes ignited by reflected moonlight.

With a despairing, terrible jolt, it all made sense to the shaman. Scar had made the hyenas into allies, promising them abundant meat and a home in the Pridelands in return for killing his competition. Nduli could've panicked the wildebeest into stampeding without any difficulty, but he couldn't possibly have gotten such a massive herd to then funnel into the gorge all by himself. No, Scar would've needed predators that could work together and knew all about successfully herding prey, and that meant multiple hyenas. Nduli was just a last-minute add on to dispose of those pesky humans who'd ruined the earlier attempt to have Simba and Nala devoured.

The lionesses and Zazu were equally aghast, staring uncomprehendingly at the approaching scavengers as they filed down onto the plain, leering and drooling, while Scar leapt up onto Pride Rock and promenaded up its slope, grandiosely proclaiming, "_…in which lion and hyena come together, for a __**great and glorious future!**_"

As the last members of the massive clan arrived on the scene, Scar's flanks then compressed tightly, and he roared out to the diamond-spangled sky, again and again. It was the victory bellow of a self-crowned tyrant, the gloating of a scoundrel who cared nothing for his kingdom or subjects or morals, only himself.

"So be prepared, for a _glorious _future! Be prepared for the pride's golden age!" he heard Scar crowing.

The barrier inside Rafiki, that he had been trying so diligently to keep together, partly failed then. Wagging his head in powerless dismay, he let the tears flow.

* * *

**In Swahili, mwanamke means woman. Wageni means stranger or visitor, while shetani means devil. Mzima means alive, although it might not be such a fitting title for the pride now that the hyenas are here.**

**BTW, the last thing Scar says in this chapter is actually part of a deleted song, an awesome little reprise of "Be Prepared" that just didn't make it into the final cut. Kind of a shame, IMO. Oh well.**

**In the next chapter, Rafiki will be-ah, interviewed-by a suspicious Scar about little matters like, oh, where the bodies of both humans have gone off to. Stay tuned, and like always, R&R!**


	34. Rafiki Copes Pt 2: Interrogation

**Hey there everyone. Hope you all had a great St. Patrick's Day. Anyhow, this chapter will be the last that takes place in the Lion King universe for a _long _while. It'll be all about Jack and Ann from here on in.**

**All characters are property of Disney except for Zachary, Russell, Tib, Chuguu (pile of ashes in Swahili), Unyenyezi (fog), Mchawi (female witch), Sherlock, Kapeni (sharp steel blade), Kanu (wildcat), Kitwana (pledged to survive), Weusi (black), Jirani (neighbor), Nyemelea (to catch unawares), and Udole (beast's claw).**

* * *

"A Slip of the Lip Can Sink a Ship." WWII slogan.

If you conduct yourself properly, don't fear anyone-Arabic Proverb

"That is just a little too interesting." Charles Fort, _Lo!_, 1932.

As if he was jamming to a silent beat, Banzai's body bobbed up and down with each stride as he raced towards the gorge among a band of 14 other hyenas, all eager for free meat. Fluffed tail curled over his back in excitement, he couldn't help cackling or whoop-calling now and again like his equally animated companions.

Around him, sometimes fairly close by, sometimes off in the distance, he could hear other members of the clan giggling or whooping or yelling as they chased prey, made kills, squabbled over kills. He knew that two of the callers out there were Shenzi and Ed-true to her aggressive nature, she'd rejected his offer to come and partake of easy meat, saying that she liked the idea of chasing something down and slaughtering it herself _much_ better. As for Ed, well, it'd sounded like fun to him too.

It was their prerogative however. And wasn't that what this just-birthed new era, the reason the Graveyard clan had chosen to form such an unorthodox partnership with a male lion in the first place, was all about? Freedom, and choices, and doing what made one happy, without having to sit on the outside looking in?

Running at Banzai's left was Zachary, another of his friends. Giggling, Zachary gleefully exclaimed, "Can you believe this man? If someone told me a year ago that we'd ever have free run of the Pridelands, I'd have laughed and said, 'Yeah, keep dreaming mudhead.' But now look at us!"

"Yeah," Banzai grinned. "No more Mufasa and enough meat to last us for the rest of our lives!"

From behind him, a female hyena, known as Chuguu, affirmed "Exactly! By the Great Goddess, it all makes me happy beyond words right now! Happy, happy, _deliriously _happy!"

Banzai was feeling her. Despite the fading scratches and pierces from his unfortunate tumble into the thorn bushes, and the bruises from Mufasa's beating-but hey, nothing worth having came without a few lumps along the way!-he honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd ever felt anywhere _close_ to this ecstatic-or at least, not since he'd joined the Graveyard clan.

Eight years ago, and about five days journey to the north as the vulture flew, he and his sister Unyenyezi had been born in an old crested porcupine burrow. Born with their eyes already open, able to crawl and shuffle, the burrow, the area around it, and the comfort of their mother Mchawi was their entire world for nearly a month.

Then, one day Mchawi had picked him up by the scruff of his neck and carried the confused, seal-brown cub for a long distance to a bigger den. There were other hyenas there, other mothers and older cubs, standing around or lying in the dust.

When Banzai's mother put him down, the other females had respectfully greeted him, some verbally, some by simply groaning over him. Politely, he'd raised one of his hind legs, allowing the other females and cubs to smell his groin and genitals, taking in his distinctive scent. Reciprocating, they had then allowed him to do the same, the cub becoming familiar with the odor of each adult and new playmate.

After guiding him into the communal den, Mchawi had left again, reassuring her son that the others wouldn't hurt him and she'd be back in a bit. Lonely, unsure about what to make of the other cubs and mothers, it had been a great relief when his mother, after what seemed like a century of fearful solitude among strangers, finally returned with his sister.

Despite such an initially daunting introduction though, Banzai and his sister swiftly warmed to their new companions, especially the other cubs in the Kirawira clan. Life was mostly an idyll of playing with Unyenyezi and the other cubs, imitating what the grownups did, sucking at Mom's udder or playing with her whenever she wasn't away searching for meat or helping keep the land safe by patrolling with the rest of her clan, lying in the warm sun or the cool shade, and warding off the tsetse flies.

Even better, Mchawi had been a high-ranking female-only fourth below the matriarch herself, if memory served him correctly-allowing him more or less to have his pick of everything as he grew up. He could insult or nip or bully almost any other male cub he pleased and get away with it. When his mother started bringing her cubs food, and later led both of them to carcasses, he nearly always could be guaranteed a place at the table.

Oh, he had been cowed and dominated at times himself by the male cubs that were even higher on the totem pole-like Sherlock, the matriarch's son, not to mention every single girl in this Amazon society. In general though, his privileged upbringing had made Banzai into a very bold, self-confident, even arrogant male, an attitude that he'd continued to possess long after he'd taken leave of his mother and sister five years ago, turning his rump on the Kirawira clan forever.

Unlike young male lions, he hadn't been violently driven away. Rather, it had been a combination of wanderlust and the allure of the females that he knew were just _waiting_ out there for him to show up which made him look to new horizons.

By and by, he had come across the Elephant Graveyard clan's territory. Although it was low on vegetation and meat, it did have plenty of females and sufficient water. So, possibly against his better sense, Banzai had joined them, the confidence and strength that were his birthright allowing him to reach a very high position in the clan.

Even so, he'd wondered more than once if it was all really worth the misery, having to endure the constant hunger, living a day-by-day existence in this wretched place. Banzai had never been able to understand why or how Mufasa or Kapeni, his father, could be so draconian as to completely ban any hyena from even making a quick, solitary foraging trip into the Pridelands.

The Kirawira clan had shared-well, more like uneasily cohabited-the lands of two different prides, which was how things normally occurred between both species. True, they still behaved like members of opposing hate groups towards each other, but that was just the way of things between two opportunistic superpredators. The lions didn't exactly enjoy the idea of hyenas roaming their land, but they grudgingly accepted it as part of their god Ngai's plan and got on with their lives.

But the Mzima Pride was harshly different. Even worse, the lion kings of the neighboring prides seemed to all be of one mind with Mufasa's anti-hyena policy, regulating all clan members to the one place that they had no use for. Any hyena who dared to trespass risked a nasty cuffing if caught-or worse.

That was a threat though, which would never hang over their heads again. Grateful and giddy at once, Banzai and his friends ran onward towards their free dinner.

As they approached the gorge, an immense yawning in the dark plain, Banzai began to lead the others to the closest side arroyo. Still flanking his chum, Zachary abruptly came to a halt and turned, ears pricked as he commented, "Holy warthogs, now that's sure weird."

"What's weird?" Banzai asked.

"There's a group of vultures across the gorge over there, feeding at night."

And indeed, as Banzai followed Zachary's gaze, he saw quite clearly (hyenas have excellent night vision) that there was indeed a little clump of vultures. Although there were still several birds tearing at the corpse, the majority seemed to have eaten their fill, crops stuffed with meat as they sprung up into the air and either clumsily flapped off to roost in a nearby tree, or glided down into the gorge itself to sleep on one of the upper ledges.

"Must be something especially tasty if it got them to feed after dark," another female, known as Tib, said, slavering in anticipation as they moved on. "Think it's the humans?"

"Maybe," Banzai answered as he started to work his way down the gully. "Or it could be a wildebeest that got trampled and all messed up in the stampede, then climbed out the side way somehow before biting it. Who cares though?"

The gorge's floor was a potpourri of exciting smells in Banzai's nostrils: fear, dust, death, blood, lion, sweat, wildebeest, and the musky, pungent reek of human. The scent of wildebeest blood was especially alluring, and Banzai struggled hard not to rush over immediately. First however, there was a body he and the others fervently wanted to gloat over.

With their excellent night vision, it was no problem for him and his friends to see the broken dead sapling a couple hundred yards to the west, and the joyously humbled, limp form of King Mufasa sprawled underneath it.

Hyenas are instinctively terrified by lion scent, especially that of a male-it had taken weeks for Banzai and his clan mates to even momentarily draw near to Scar-and they couldn't all help but still remain timorous, keeping up a healthy, uncertain respect and awe as the group padded up to Mufasa's body in a shuffling phlanax.

Fear and contempt mixed together in Banzai's heart. He'd been chased and clawed by the big cats, including this one, many times during his life. He'd gone without food because of His Majesty too often.

"Aw, look how the mighty have _fallen!_" Tib mocked, bursting into glass-edged laughter.

Laughing with the others, Banzai added, "Yeah, he was just too big of a pussy to land on his feet! HA HA!"

"I say we start chowing down on this king fit for a meal right now," Ebony, another female, savagely, half-jokingly proposed. "I don't care what the boss or the lionesses say!"

"Whoa Eb, slow down," Zachary cautioned. "Remember, Scar _did _say we should wait for a day so that the pride has time to pay their respects, and so that the vultures can transport his soul to the stars after feeding on his body. You wouldn't want a lion to interfere with our death rituals, would you?"

"Dumbass rituals," Ebony muttered. But she dismissed the matter, shrugging as she said, "Meh, I can get myself a nice meal of wildebeest regardless, so waiting a while is no fur off my hocks."

"Wildebeest sounds very good to me!" Chuguu agreed, turning and running off with Ebony to the wildebeest bull. The others followed her lead, Banzai using the scent of blood to guide him to one of the yearlings Nduli had killed, rushing across the stone. Before hurling himself at the carcass, the hyena noted that although the belly had been opened up, the leopard tom hadn't eaten the organ meat or even returned at all. Maybe the cat had found the livers of two human beings to be filling enough for the night, and couldn't be bothered to reclaim his kill.

Oh well, finders keepers!

Hyenas have no problem with consuming horrendously putrid, maggot-infested meat that would practically send us into septic shock if we dared to swallow a bite. Still, they too prefer their meals fresh if possible, and Banzai eagerly bolted down wildebeest flesh, pinning the yearling with his forepaws for leverage as he ate deep into her body cavity, his head and neck fur becoming shampooed, drenched, pasted, with blood.

He bit into meat and jerked his head upward, shaking violently to help rip a chunk off, gulping it down like a dog does. Possessive and overexcited, he snapped at, harshly nipped, and lunged at lesser males who tried to horn in, while Tib and other females did the same to him, causing Banzai to cackle in surprise and agitation as he parried their flailing jaws away with his own and bobbed his lowered head in appeasement.

He ate and ate, until, his belly looking like he'd swallowed a small boulder, the hyena felt the wonderful, all too rare sensation of being satiated overtake him. With a contented yawn, Banzai drew back, the young wildebeest now reduced to a few bones, skull, horns, and blood-soaked dust. Lazily, he padded over to where many of his friends were feeding on the dead bull and laid down in the dust for a nap. Other replete hyenas were doing the same thing. It was so good to be full!

Suddenly, Banzai's huge ears picked up the sound of two large animals descending another side arroyo in the right side of the canyon, in front of him, broken rock slipping and clashing underneath and before them. Out of its mouth came Zachary and Russell, another male, eyes wide with shock and excitement.

"You won't believe what we just found!" Russell screeched.

"No, we won't," Ebony grumpily hurled back, "and we don't care! So piss off and let us relax after the first decent dinner we've had in weeks!"

"You don't understand," Zach said, "he's dead!"

"Who's dead?" Chuguu asked, voice tinted by irritation. "If you mean Jack or Simba, it ain't exactly some news flash pal. You must have granite for ears if you-"

"**NO!**" Zachary barked. "It's Nduli! _Nduli's_ dead!"

"One of the humans killed him with a sharp, pointed stick thing!" Russell added.

At those words, Banzai's jaw dropped, and he leapt to his feet. The skirmish in the graveyard yesterday afternoon had impressed on him quite indelibly that not only were humans real, but that they were disturbingly good at using rocks, bones, and other convenient objects as weapons in place of claws or sharp teeth. Still, although they could effectively hurt their enemies and give them a good thrashing, he couldn't conceive of Jack or Ann actually _killing _another animal, least of all a male leopard, with an object-weapon.

"Killed him?" Banzai exclaimed. "You serious dude? Nduli's actually dead?"

"Um, yeah," Zachary dryly responded. "No fooling, trust me."

"And what's _really_ weird is that although there's all kinds of blood from those crazy new animals, especially a male one"-_Jack_, Banzai thought-"there's no other bodies around at all," Russell added.

_Oh Goddess_, Banzai thought, alarm calls going off in his brain. Something was seriously not right about this.

Suddenly, Banzai found himself becoming quite frustrated at the other males! They'd been lollygagging and sniffing around when at least one of the humans could still be alive, and other animals could even be finding out the truth about Scar's intricate plot right now!

"Why didn't you two dolts tell us this right away!" he chided. "If Nduli's dead and there's no sign of any human carcass, that's a huge frigging deal, and you both should've let me know immediately so I could tell the boss!"

Rattled by his friend's anger, Zachary averted his gaze and scuffed one of his paws in the sand as he gabbled, "We're sorry Banzai. It's just that when we smelt what the vultures and this jackal had left of him-we couldn't help ourselves, and started crunching up bones. We were hungry and instinct took over."

"Eh, I guess I can understand that," Banzai sympathized. His sense of urgency welled up in the next instant however, tinting his voice as he commanded, "Where did you find Nduli though? Show us!"

"Sure thing," Russell replied. "Just follow us."

Within ten minutes Banzai and his fellows had trailed both males, and then the exciting spoor, to where Nduli-well, what was left of him-lay. Astonished, he joined the others in milling around the area, nose to the ground as he sniffed the leopard's bloodied, cracked bones, loose head, fur, the two gory rods of acacia wood that had been apparently thrust through the cat's chest, and the stained, kicked-up dirt.

Hyenas generally don't get along with leopards any better than they do with lions. They will eat leopard cubs and aggressively steal leopard kills whenever they get half a chance.

At the same time though, a male leopard will often not hesitate to punish a nosy hyena with a good, claw-raking thrashing that may well result in the hyena being lamed. Leopards are also very fond of slandering and insulting hyenas, mocking and deriding their unkempt, filthy appearance, misshapen bodies, noisy behavior, and awkward style of movement. Most of all, whenever one of the spotted cats has safely hauled a kill into a tree's branches, they take the greatest pleasure in taunting any hyenas below, urging them to leap up and get the meat, or rubbing in the fact that they have a yummy dinner and the hyena doesn't.

Nduli himself had done the same to Banzai and his friends, so the hyena wasn't exactly filled with sorrow about the walleyed tom's death. He was however, very much shocked and confused.

Here lay a cat that could kill huge rock pythons, and made taking down baboons almost look easy. And yet…two pathetically defenseless-looking creatures had killed such a powerful, master lone hunter with just a sharp stick or two. Elephants kind of had similar weapons in the form of their tusks, and antelopes too with their horns. Those weapons though, were natural ones, parts of the creature's own bodies like the fangs in his very own mouth.

This weapon though, was part of a tree, not something that grew out of a human body. Being a hyena, Banzai's brain couldn't form the concept of tool use, although he'd seen Egyptian vultures, those white, saffron-faced, trimmer cousins of the hulking white-backed and griffons, crack open ostrich eggs before by picking up stones in their nutpick bills and hurling them against the marble-hard shells.

He did understand though, that the humans evidently had a disturbing knack for taking all sorts of objects and using them-perhaps even **changing** them!-in ways and for purposes that no hyena or for that matter, most other animals would ever imagine. That was something he found very eerie, and obviously it also made humans far more dangerous then one gave them credit for. He wondered if Scar had been struck by that realization as well, and how much of a role it had played in his decision to have the pair killed off.

As he sniffed, his nose gathered an eclectic-and very strange-assortment of animal scents: leopard blood, human blood from two different individuals, terror-sweat, vulture, white rhino, silver backed jackal.

And mandrill.

Suddenly, it came to Banzai that he'd also seen mandrill tracks in the dust, and smelt mandrill odor around Mufasa's body. In his glee about the old king's death and haste to feast on carrion, it hadn't meant particularly much to him. But now it occurred to the hyena that just _may_be it should've.

Slowly, and with mounting suspicion, the different scents and tracks all fell into place to paint a very incriminating-and frightening in its uncertainty-picture indeed of what had taken place here. As much as he wanted to just curl up into a ball and enjoy sleeping off his wildebeest dinner, Banzai reluctantly realized that he had no other choice available.

Well, he wasn't one of Scar's top three hench hyenas for nothing. "Zach, Russell, you come with me to Pride Rock," he ordered. "As for the rest of you, follow that rhino's scent trail as far as you can and as fast as you can."

At that idea, some of the hyenas like Chuguu, meat-intoxicated after feasting, began to produce bovine moos of complaint. "Don't bellyache, just do it!" Banzai snapped. "Unless you want me to mention your lazy name to Shenzi or maybe even His New Majesty," he added, which stopped the protesting pretty swiftly. "Rafiki was here, he's up to something that involves those humans, and Scar's gotta know everything we can find out about it."

Then, wheeling about, he tore for the nearest side gully, Russell and Zachary at his heels. Two minutes later, all three males had crossed the gorge and were running as fast as they could push themselves, Pride Rock steadily sprouting from the horizon as they drew nearer.

When the triad finally attained the great kopje, Scar, like Banzai had presumed, found their testimony-and what it implied-to be both disturbing and a little too curious.

* * *

After thanking Zachary and dismissing him, Scar then gruffly told Banzai, "You were wise to put your companions on that rhino's trail. It gladdens me to know you're so _capa_ble and straightforward, my dear Banzai-and you so _superb_ly observant, my good Russell."

"Hey, no problemo," Banzai flattered. "A king like you deserves nothing less from us."

"Indeed," Scar replied, an ironic, slow smile touching his features. "And that's why I now want both of you to keep a watch on that scatterbrained ape for the rest of the night, until the fog lifts in the morning. Keep yourselves hidden as well as possible, so that he doesn't suspect anything. If he tries to leave his tree for any reason though, prevent him at all costs."

"I'm sure the two of us can manage that," Russell nodded.

"Yeah, my name doesn't mean 'skulk' for nothing," Banzai agreed, grinning. "But why do you want us to quit in the morning? Are other hyenas going to take over from us then?"

"No," Scar said. "At that point, Matriarch Shenzi herself will be arriving to escort Rafiki here to Pride Rock-where I shall be asking him some very, very hard questions."

* * *

_Uneasy lays the head that wears the crown_, Scar thought, a most unwelcome tension squeezing his body like a python's coils as he padded over to the smaller cave, where Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow had been sleeping the night before. He was also secretly rather cross and dismayed.

When Jack, blast him, had insisted on bringing that sharpened stick along, the same one the human had threatened him with, Scar had known straightaway that it would likely make things difficult for Nduli. Because of that, he'd tried his best to convince the man into leaving his weapon behind, which would've made the leopard's task easy as catching a gazelle fawn.

But no, Jack had insisted, and Scar could've hardly afforded to prick his ears by being stern or demanding about the matter. As a result, the lion had expected his leopard minion to end up injured in some way. He had not however, imagined that Jack would actually be able to best and kill Nduli with that horrid spear thing! The very idea was like the concept of a lioness bringing down a buffalo alone. Just not possible!

Walking into the cave, Scar curiously paced about, nose near the ground as he inhaled the strange odors. After proclaiming himself king and at least reducing friction between the indignant lionesses and hyenas, some of the clan had swiftly devoured the uneaten remains of the impala he'd lugged back here as a goodwill gesture to assure and placate Jack Driscoll.

Still, the scent of blood and fur and gut contents remained, along with the powerful odor of wood smoke. The olfactory herald of fire instinctively unnerved Scar, and the lion pulled his lips back in a repelled snarl, one that was also fueled by his mood.

Nduli would've made an excellent second-in-command at Pride Rock. Perhaps the leopard could've served as a personal guard, preventing any of the lionesses or hyenas from intruding upon His Majesty's blissful solitude. He could've made a respectable herald or envoy as well. And the walleyed tom would most definitely have made an enthusiastic executioner. Blast Jack Driscoll!

With some reflection however, as he regarded and sniffed at the traces of the guest cave's human occupants, Scar decided it was in all probability for the best. He'd lost a useful ally in Nduli, but what of it? Nduli had been an arrogant, highly ambitious creature, who craved the prospect of the status that being associated with Scar would bring.

There was only one big cat Scar wanted to see displaying ambition at Pride Rock-himself.

What really weighed on his mind like a hippo's head was what Zachary and Russell had discovered on the far side of the gorge. It was obvious that Rafiki, that screwy, half-addled witch doctor of a baboon, had stumbled across Jack and Ann after the male human and the leopard had both had their way with each other, or more likely heard the sounds of the conflict while picking herbs, chanting at the moon, banging rocks, or however in the Black Fire Desert he spent his time and rushed right over to investigate.

Somewhere along the route, he'd hailed a white rhino, probably either as a shield against whatever predator the baboon figured he'd encounter, a way to move faster than he could on foot alone, or both. And so, Rafiki had arrived on the field of conflict.

And what then? Ah, but there was an open-ended question indeed, and most of the possibilities privately made his dark heart quiver with a paranoid terror. He hoped to Ngai that both humans had already been slain when the witch doctor showed up.

But what if they hadn't? The lion king knew well that male baboons will not hesitate to die fighting in defense of the troop's females and young against predators. And the hyenas _had _claimed to have smelt much larger amounts of Jack's blood than Ann's.

It was very possible that Ann had still been alive when Rafiki showed up, and was maybe even able to still get about on her own thanks to Jack's sacrifice. If so, how much had she told him, and how much did the mandrill believe?

For that matter, what if even Jack himself had **not** been killed outright by Nduli, but had merely been senseless, or maybe even still aware of his surroundings? The more he thought about it, Scar decided as he pulled a catcher's mitt forepaw down over his muzzle, the more distressing and haunting the scenarios became.

What if, what if, what if.

Scar knew that as the new king, it was right and proper for him to be asking these sorts of questions and having these doubtful fears. They kept a ruler's claws extended and his ears pricked for trouble.

It was galling though, to be having to ask them so soon, when he should be reveling in his hard-won, new royal power and privileges!

Ultimately, Scar realized, of all the questions rushing about in his head now, the most crucial were what Rafiki had done with both humans-whether dead or alive-and if he posed any threat to the lion's rule by spreading dissent.

And if Scar didn't like the answers…oh, then Ngai help that ape indeed!

* * *

Sleep hadn't come easily for Rafiki, even in the security of his baobab tree. The evening's dreadful events had left him shaken and emotionally drained-and of course, lonely. As much as he wanted to close his eyes, he couldn't stop thinking about Mr. Driscoll maybe dying at any moment and generating a wave of chaos that ate universe after universe, about seeing Mufasa's body in the gorge, about how Scar was going to let the hyenas do whatever they liked to the creatures of the Pridelands, about how not even a foursome of nomad males could fight and win against so many hyenas, about how he felt at least partly responsible for everything that had happened, and a hundred other awful things.

Just as bad had been hearing the near constant cries of the hyenas as they ran amok in the Pridelands. Every twenty minutes or so, the stillness of the night had been smashed by the agonized cries of the dying and the insane chuckles of their destroyers.

It wasn't that the shaman hadn't heard anything like them before. Here in the African bush, where life fed on death and death fed on life in the same ratio and horrors were commonplace, he'd often heard herbivores utter their last distressed cry from the safety of his sleeping nest.

But this time, it was all just too chilling and grating, was too frequent-and indeed, Rafiki suspected that the hyenas were bringing down some game for no other reason then sheer bloodlust. To sport kill was a _terrible_ abomination before the Circle, and the chances were good that that behavior would invite punishment from Ngai sooner or later, making the situation all the worse.

When he did sleep, his dreams had been disturbing ones. In one, despite his efforts to hold them off, Scar and the entire hyena clan had driven him before them to the edge of the gorge, where a grinning V. Rex waited. In another, Mwaguzi and Mganga desperately repelled and fought ropes and rifts of a consuming, dark energy that spread out from Jack's corpse while a gloating Scar laughed hysterically.

In yet another, the horrible, nightmarish giant crickets from the Skull Island gorge he'd seen through the water in the tortoise shell had somehow also appeared in the elephant graveyard and become allies of the hyenas, joining them in laying waste to the land, a hellish plague that devoured animals and vegetation alike while the figure of Scar, now as large as Kong himself, nodded and leered in approval from the highest point of Pride Rock, knowing everything that happened in his domain.

But at last, he'd fallen into a state of sleep deep enough that even his fear and the cries of the clan weren't able to touch it, and got some rest.

It helped a lot, and with the break of day, things didn't seem so bad as before. Life could only go on.

Taking up his staff and humming to himself, the mandrill decided to head over to the forest along the river. There was a fig tree he knew about, and its crop of fruit would be ripe and sweet by this time…

Swinging from bough to bough, Rafiki reached the edge of the baobab's portly, slick trunk, about-faced, scrambled down, turned…and almost walked into a seated Shenzi.

Grunting, the witch doctor automatically raised his staff, gourds clacking, and gripped it tightly, bracing for the she-hyena's lunge.

"Surprised to see me monkey?" Shenzi grinned. "Don't worry, I had the best feast of my life last night, and I ain't going to attack you, even without that stick."

"My name is Rafiki Shenzi," he sternly growled. "Why are you under my tree?"

"Oh, just because," she quipped. "Actually, Scar sent me to bring you to Pride Rock bud," she affirmed, her voice carrying a creepy cheerfulness. "You see, it seems that he found out that you were up to some shady stuff last night, and he's just _dying_ to have you tell him more about it," she said with a snicker. "So come with me or else," she half-growled.

Despite the position he was thrust into at that moment, Rafiki did not feel any serious fear or anxiety about being interrogated by Scar. Mandrills and other monkeys were the most clever creatures in the bush after all, and it was doubly so for shamans like him. He also had his fighting fangs, his staff, and experience in martial arts, while Scar and his hyenas knew only crude, clumsy brute force when it came to fighting.

And if he couldn't fight his way out if things got nasty, he could always climb or dodge his way out of trouble. Mwaguzi had even taught him a few things about using magic itself as an admittedly iffy weapon, such as inducing a sort of self-hypnosis in an attacker that would make them forget that they wanted to harm you or confused them for thirty heartbeats or so.

The sun was shining on his skin. The breeze was blowing in his coat. The cries of the doves and cicadas throbbed in his ears. And truly confident, Rafiki smiled at the hyena, replying "Sure ding Mam."

As he fell into stride alongside her, the butt of his staff pounding into the ground, the witch doctor asked, tone perfectly modulated, "What sort of dis 'shady stuff' did Scar say I was up to?"

"How would I know monkey?" Shenzi snorted in irritation. "He didn't tell me. Nor has he told anybody else, from what I figure. Now quit asking me retarded questions."

A reassuring thing to know. Unruffled by Shenzi's disrespectful attitude, Rafiki decided to pick up another topic of conversation. Partly to continue to appear blasé, partly because he was curious, he enquired, "How are de twins I helped you bear doing now, Shenzi?"

"Ahh, Kanu and Kitwana," she reminisced, a fond smile caressing her blocky, husky features. "I actually don't know how my sons are doing monkey," she sighed thoughtfully. "They both wandered off to seek their destiny about eleven moons ago."

"Grown and gone already?" Rafiki replied, blinking in mild surprise. "It has been a long while since I saved them, hasn't it?"

"That's for damn sure," Shenzi agreed, cackling. "I just hope they're finding enough meat, not doing anything stupid, and that they've settled or will settle safely into another clan. Too bad they'll have to start from the bottom position if they have though," she muttered. "Oh well."

"Have you brought forth any other cubs?"

"No, not yet," she answered, shaking her head, eyes closed. "But that's all gonna change monkey, now that we're living in a place like _this_!" Shenzi then began to regale the mandrill about how she'd helped run down and kill a Cape buffalo cow, devouring living steak as the cow had bellowed in distress, and what a joyous event it had been.

They were at Pride Rock before Rafiki knew it. Looking up at the main cave, the witch doctor couldn't help but feel apprehensive about who he knew was waiting to interrogate him in there. But showing any concern could doom him. Bravely, mind at peace, so aware of the now, he followed Shenzi through a scattering of lounging hyenas that raised their heads to regard him curiously and whisper in speculation among themselves.

"What's the baboon doing here?"

"Do ya think Scar's mad that he wasn't around when he declared himself king?"

"I think he's probably here to conduct some sort of kingship ceremony for Scar or to give him advice on how to rule."

"Maybe Scar's gonna tell the monkey not to try casting spells on us or other weird mystical stuff like that."

"Why's Shenzi escorting him? Is he dangerous or something?"

Paying no heed, Rafiki climbed the eroded stone ramp, dazzling sunlight beating down on him as Shenzi led the way. As he entered the cave, he heard Scar breathing and shifting his body as Shenzi told him, "I brought the monkey boss, like you asked me to."

"Did he give you any trouble?"

"None. He was well-behaved."

For a few moments, Rafiki's primate eyes were useless, blind in the sudden darkness. They adjusted within seconds though, and he saw Scar's sinewy, lanky form reclining on the granite platform that just a day before had been occupied by Mufasa instead. The green eyes, flinty and suspicious as a wary crocodile's, stared up at the mandrill from above the torn remnants of a male gray duiker. Blood matted the fur around his tightened jaws.

Seated at the left side of the platform were two male spotted hyenas. On seeing Rafiki, one began to laugh, a gleeful, mocking, cackle of anticipation. "Oooh, you're _soo_ gonna get it monkey, you're in **big** trouble now," he chortled.

Annoyed, Scar whirled about as he commandingly snarled, "Quiet, you babbling idiot!"

Shocked and submissive, the hyena lowered and began bobbing his head, placating "Sorry boss, I didn't mean to reflect poorly on ya or anything!"

"Go away now Banzai," the lion coolly ordered, rising to his huge feet and stretching, showing his sable sickles of claws. "You too, Shenzi and Russell." They swiftly obeyed, Banzai momentarily halting at the cave's threshold to give the witch doctor a chilling leer over his shoulder.

Now, it was just the two of them, the lion and the mandrill. _O Lord Ngai, put the correct words in my mouth and soothe Scar's mind,_ he silently prayed, fingers tight around his staff.

Lips squeezed into a tight, grim line, eyes fixed on the shaman, Scar strolled up to Rafiki and, in a voice that was courtly, yet distinctly stern, informed him, "I shall make this short and to the point, dear shaman. First, sit down."

Although he knew it only placed him in a more vulnerable position if Scar decided to attack, there was no other option but to obey. "Sure ting, Your Majesty," he obliged, the title repugnant on his tongue.

The black-maned lion began to circle him, body raised to look more impressive as he said, "I will be asking the questions here, and you'll simply answer me. First of all Rafiki, do you know why I had Shenzi bring you here?"

"She said dat you wanted to speak to me about what I'd been up to last night," he replied. He didn't mention Shenzi's comment about him being up to shady things. He hadn't been accused of anything just yet, after all.

"That's right," Scar confirmed with a practiced friendliness. "Now, you just met two male hyenas, whose names, if you failed to catch them the first time, are Banzai and Russell. Have you ever seen or smelt them before?"

"Never," Rafiki truthfully responded. "I have dery little to do with de hyenas in de first place, so how could I?"

"I'm the one asking the questions, not you," Scar pompously hissed. "Both Russell and Banzai have smelt your odor before though, in the company of a rhino. Where do you think they may have smelt you with a rhino?"

"I don't know, Your Majesty," he shrugged.

"Did you ever go up onto the southern lip of the gorge at any time after the stampede last night, but before I became king?"

In life, Mwaguzi had told his pupil several times that the most effective lies were ones that had just enough truth backing them up. And again, Scar hadn't accused him of any treachery as yet. The shaman decided to take a huge gamble.

"Yes, I did."

Suddenly an eager, predatory expression came into Scar's eyes, and the cold smile of a monitor lizard appeared on his face. Frightened, Rafiki steeled himself to fight for his very life and say a confusion spell. But Scar made no move to attack or summon the hyenas.

Instead, the lion stood in front of the shaman and asked meditatively, "Well. Why did you ever go over there, I wonder?"

"I heard dis horrible growling and yelling and screaming far away when I was taking a walk, Your Majesty," Rafiki lied, "and it made me dery concerned, so I rushed over as fast as I could to see what was happening."

"You came across a white rhino, a bull, and rode it at least part of the way, from what Banzai and the other hyenas there smelt. Is that correct?"

Knowing better than to tell Scar he'd actually been with Mbathi since late afternoon, frantically searching for both humans, Rafiki replied, "Yes. I had de luck to encounter a rhino bull as I hurried to de sounds of de fight and had him carry me on his back. Did you expect me to run up to a dangerous predator wit only a stick as defense?"

"I told you I shall ask the questions," Scar growled. "You found a freshly killed leopard tom when you arrived, as well as two humans that were either dead or dying themselves. Don't deny that you did."

"I deny nothing," the mandrill protested sincerely.

"Were both humans dead at that time?"

"Dere was so much blood and so many wounds upon dem dat it left no doubt, Your Majesty."

"Are you sure about that, dear Rafiki? I prize honesty you know, and if one was even still breathing when you came, do tell me. I won't be cross or anything. In fact, I'll reward you promptly for your frankness."

Concentrating on Scar's malachite gaze, Rafiki gave the lion king a subtle sort of mental touch with his magic powers, backing it up with another calm denial. "No, dey were both already gone."

"Even Ann, the female?"

"Even her."

Scar seemed to accept this, nodding as he looked at the mandrill with his vulturine eyes.

"Those humans went by the names of Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow. You may have heard how they rescued my poor, poor nephew from some misbegotten hyenas when he and Nala strayed into the graveyard, only to have him die in the stampede. Did you ever directly speak to them or even see them while the humans were still alive?"

"I got news from a vervet monkey about how de humans had come into de Pridelands and how dey saved both cubs, but never got to meet them. A witch doctor's day is a busy one, after all."

"Indeed," Scar faintly smiled. "Do you have any inkling of where they came from or if they ever had companions in the recent past?"

"Once more, I ne'der got to speak to dem, so I have no way of knowing, Your Majesty."

"Mmm. Well, moving along, what do you think happened yourself between the leopard and the humans? Don't be afraid to guess now," he coaxed, a smile like the one a kidnapper might use to charm a second grader twisting across his chiseled features.

"I wasn't dere," Rafiki carefully replied. "But it looks to me like de leopard just happened to be nearby when de humans somehow managed to get away from de stampede-perhaps he was hunting a wildebeest himself-and attacked them."

"I do too, shaman," Scar responded, a dangerous agree-with-me-damn it-quality in his voice. "It all sounds like a dreadful, cruel stroke of bad luck to me as well. But carry on with what you've surmised."

"When de leopard attacked, Jack must've stood his ground and fought de cat to de death to protect Ann, just like we baboons will," Rafiki volunteered. "He speared de leopard twice, causing fatal wounds, but de leopard still had enough fight in it left to kill him, and then savage Ann before dying. It looked to me like he bit into her shoulder and gutted de unfortunate kike with his hind claws," he added for good measure.

"How appalling!" Scar groaned in mock horror. "But it can't be helped now, no more than my noble brother's death can," he sighed.

There was a pause, heavy and brooding. Rafiki had the sense that Scar was using the silence to pressure him into fidgeting or exhibiting some other incriminating gesture of discomfort. Well, he wasn't going to fall for a trick like that!

"Now, when Russell and his companion, Zachary, happened across the scene, they fed on that leopard's carcass. But although they smelt blood from both humans, they didn't feed on their carcasses, since they'd already been moved-and **you** were the one who moved them."

Eyes suddenly steely, lips contracted, Scar growled, "And don't you dare deny it shaman. Every hyena who was at the site has bloody well sworn up and down that there was no trace of the humans, but there _was_ a trail of blood leading away with your smell and the rhino's smell mixed in."

"Dat is correct," Rafiki answered, cool in the face of Scar's vehemence. "I decided to move dem both on de rhino's back to another place to bury dem together."

"What business did you have doing such a thing?" Scar snapped. "You know that it is the way of things that when any living creature dies, their body is just meat, and is left laying where they fell for others to eat, like Ngai intended, don't you?

"Dat is true, but humans-"

"You're hiding something from me, aren't you?" Scar glared-snarled.

Rafiki thought quickly. "I most certainly am not, my illustrious king! It is just dat in my long life, I have heard many tings about humans, deir ways, and deir customs, including deir strange attitude towards de dead."

"Such as…?" Scar put forth, tail lightly lashing.

"Well, dey say dat humans feel quite strongly dat even in death, deir body is sacred, and dat it is not right to allow it to be eaten by ot'er creatures or left out in de open, Your Majesty."

"Which makes no sense to me. Carrion is carrion, and there's nothing holy about it."

"True, but dat is what humans are said to believe. And even if dey make no sense to us, we must respect de customs and ways of ot'ers-like you have done wit' de hyenas, Your Majesty."

Beaming with smug, self-congratulatory pride, Scar said, "Yes, that was such a generous and forward-looking gesture on my part, wasn't it?" Suspicion came on its heels however, as Scar droned, "But why did you go gallivanting deep into another kingdom to bury them, when you could've just buried them where they were slain?"

This time Rafiki told a complete, if masterful lie. "Dat's because humans apparently believe dat it is dery bad luck to be buried in de same place where you were killed. It curses de ground or something."

"Yes, well." Scar snorted in irritation. "I suppose your strange actions in light of this information are comprehensible then. After all, on the off chance that they might not be falsehood, my late brother _did _at least display respectful behavior towards the gods and goddesses which the lesser beasts revere, so as not to offend them involuntarily. Prudence is a virtue, our mother always told us."

After that, the lion once more said nothing. The shaman knew that he was probably waiting for him to ask if that was all and he could leave, providing the big cat with another chance to detect nervous behavior. He could wait this spell out too.

"Now there's one more thing," Scar said at length. "Thanks to your vicarious adherence to human customs, you buried both Jack and Ann deep in the kingdom of the Sekhmet Pride. Naturally, some of my hyena friends followed the scent trail you left while on rhino back out of curiosity."

"Did dey manage to get to de end?" Rafiki calmly put in.

"I told you before, you hard-of-hearing ape, _I'm_ asking the questions here!" Scar rumbled in irritation, adding a cough.

"I apologize," Rafiki conceded. "I shall not do it again."

"Good. No, they did not even come close to where you buried the pair of humans. You see, not terribly far inside the pride's territory, they abruptly encountered most of the Sekhmet Pride's members-including its males. One might say it was oddly like they were led onto our neighbors," Scar strongly hinted, giving Rafiki a meaningful, sideways look, ears rotating backward.

As for the witch doctor, he was rather surprised. "Scar, it is not what you tink," he stated, holding up his left hand and lowering it for emphasis. "I truly did not know ot' your relationship wit' de hyenas until last night. Seriously," he added. On reflection though, he suspected that Mganga could possibly have had something to do with the lions being present in that area of their land.

Thankfully, Scar seemed to pick up on the honesty and conviction in his voice and relaxed. Even so, there was still a grass-thin strand of accusation in his voice as he remarked, "You're right, you could not have known I ever fraternized with the hyenas or planned to give them a proper home here at Pride Rock. All the same, Weusi, Jirani, and Nyemelea were accompanying their lionesses at the time, and a skirmish ensued that left two hyenas dead and others clawed."

"It fills my spirit wit' sorrow to hear dat, Your Majesty," the mandrill replied gravely, although in truth (which rather shocked him a little), he wasn't all that morose at the idea that there were two less hyenas to devour and make life difficult for the creatures of the Pridelands. "What were de names of de poor souls?"

"Tib and Udole," Scar spat. "And you have caused their deaths Rafiki."

"By sheer accident. And it was dey who made de choice to follow my trail. Deir curiosity is what proved deir undoing, not me."

Scar's considering, electric stare lingered on Rafiki for a few moments before he muttered, "Well, I suppose that is both understandable and forgivable. From now on though, if you or any of the lionesses ever directly or indirectly do serious bodily harm to one of the hyenas, you _will_ at best receive a thrashing. At worst, you'll be feeding them."

"And that leads me to one last, little thing," the lion king added. "I know that during the time my dear, lamented brother was alive, you were a loyal, steadfast companion of his, who could always be trusted and relied upon."

Half proudly, half in defiance, Rafiki said "Dat's right!" to his friend's murderer.

"Well, although I _need_ no confidants or friends," Scar said, "I too, expect that you will be equally loyal and trustworthy in your words and behavior towards me, your new king."

"Certainly, Your Majesty," the mandrill replied, feeling like vomiting from shame and anger.

"So I can safely assume that you wouldn't engage in seditious behavior like oh, spreading wild, slanderous rumors about my brother's death, comparing my reign to his, inciting the lionesses to overthrow me, or other inappropriate things like that, right?"

"Sakes alive Your Majesty, ned'er!!" the witch doctor gasped, free hand swooping up to his rainbow face to cover a mouth wide with mock horror. "I would not commit such an act e'den if de king of de Black Fire Desert himself asked me to!"

"A refreshing thing to hear," Scar approvingly sighed. Returning to the stone platform, he sat back on his haunches, relaxed and confident and at peace. Still, his great deep jade eyes remained roped to Rafiki as he said, "That is all now shaman. You may go now and play with your herbs and pretty rocks or have visions as you see fit. Just remember though, not to dabble _outside_ that position," he hinted. "Kingship after all, is for lions…by lions."

"Yes, Your Royal Majesty," Rafiki gratefully answered before turning and walking outside the cave.

The sun was now even higher and hotter, its light brighter than before. Lying on his scraggly right side, soaking up the warmth, was Banzai.

Hearing the gourds on the shaman's staff clicking, the hyena raised his head, teddy-bear ears alert. On seeing the baboon, he got up and strode over.

"I don't know what sort of magic juju or sweet talk you used on the boss, chimp," Banzai said coolly, "but you got off a _lot_ easier than I thought you would."

Abruptly, the staff crashed down onto the crown of the hyena's head, making him screech in pain.

"Out of my way, you insolent disgrace!" Rafiki barked before moving on. A smug satisfaction expanded within him at each step he took, and for once, the grin on his face was not artificial in the least.

After all, Scar had only said that it was forbidden to cause a hyena _**serious **_bodily harm.

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**Whoo, writing the main part of this chapter was a real struggle. To write the part with Scar interrogating Rafiki, I actually used real police interrogations for reference, while of course making sure that both Scar and Rafiki stayed true to their respective personas. It took a lot of time, and even now I'm not sure if I pulled it off right. **

**As for Tib, her name is a playful homage to a pair of hyena characters, dubbed Tib and Tab, from the 1960's Japanese animated series and movie Kimba, The White Lion, which, depending on how you look at it, is the predecessor of/inspiration/mimic/shamelessly plagarized template for The Lion King. And there are MANY people, quite angry and vocal ones at that, who take that last stance. **

**I however, think of it all as a case of harmless, coincidental mimicry. There are also just as many differences between TLK and Kimba as there are similiarties. Among other things, whether they be evil, helpful, or neutral, humans play a FAR greater role in the Kimba series and movie than in The Lion King. By the time he's Simba's age, both of Kimba's parents are already dead, and his aunt, not his uncle, is the villian of the piece, to serve as further examples. **

**As before, reviews are appreciated!**


	35. Nightime Interlude

**Hello once more everyone. This chapter is more of a simple interlude then a dramatic, sweeping scene. Indeed, I'm not sure if I should just keep it here, or make it into a one-shot fic.**

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"Express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it." Ralph Marston.

_"No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night." Elie Weisel, 1986._

For Ann Darrow, going to sleep these days was a struggle. She was always terrified that Jack, hooked up to machines and drugged, would die during one of the times she was asleep, denying her the chance to say goodbye-although, from what information she'd been able to bully out of the hospital staff, some sort of chain reaction it would cause would apparently claim her as well. It all sounded like a fantastic lie to her.

Then too, whenever she tried to release her mind to slumber, she would be haunted by the memories of those who had died as a result to becoming close to her. Simba, Mufasa, the sailors who had met grisly ends attempting to save her from Kong. Hell, it wouldn't surprise her if the great ape had died by now. Thanks to bonding with her, he'd probably taken a fatal fall from a tree, been crushed by falling rock, or set upon and killed by a pack of tyrannosaurs that was too big for even _him_ to keep at bay.

_Everyone goes away,_ she thought sickly.

It certainly hadn't helped matters to discover that despite everyone's best precautions, Jack's wounds _had _become septic, about 18 hours after Dr. Zhong and his team had saved his life. That had been an absolute horror to live through. Her Jack of Hearts had run a temperature of 103.4 degrees F, and his heartbeat had sounded like a woodpecker drumming...

It had been an emotionally and mentally excruciating three and a half hours for Ann, and no doubt the staff too. When his breathing had begun to get less labored, that really fed the fires of her despair. Not realizing it could be a positive sign, she was more or less certain that Jack's respiration sounded easier for the simple reason that he wasn't making as much of an effort to breathe and so, was starting to give up.

Thankfully, she'd been proved wrong. It had been the first stage of his fever breaking. And when a weary Doctor Zhong had stopped by, tears of relief and happiness, not helpless despair and terror, had trickled down her cheeks at the news that Jack's temperature had dropped by two and a half degrees.

Still, even with his temperature back to normal and the infection controlled, she knew Jack's condition could go to hell again at any time. And there was always the nagging worry, despite Zhong's optimistic prognosis, that if Jack did recover, he would never again be the same in mind and soul.

As much as Zhong and other hospital staff advised her to go easy with the link, Ann Darrow couldn't resist the gnawing impulse any longer. Sitting up in bed, she turned on the holographic projector.

A sharp, white and silver image, transmitted by an infrared camera, wavered in the air. As always, her hero was under sedation, showing no movement other then the gentle bellows pumping of his ribs.

Ann sighed, ambivalence filtering through her. He didn't seem to have gotten any worse, but at the same time didn't seem to be getting any better, either. It was like he was walking on a rail fence, where any shift in balance could send him sprawling into either pasture, depending on which way his body leant.

The night vision camera meant that the lights in his room, just like hers, had been turned off, and therefore, no one else was around. Good. She wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk with him, even if he couldn't exactly hear her or talk back.

It would be even better if she could be beside him while speaking, of course, but this would have to do.

"Well Jack Driscoll," she began, "there's some things I have to let you know. Since you're knocked out by those drugs, I know you can't hear me, and maybe even if you weren't, you still might not understand what I'm saying. Maybe you'll never hear me speak again, which is why I have to tell you this now, while there's at least still _hope_ you'll survive."

The former actress paused, inhaling morosely as she regarded her room. It looked like she felt. Dark. Lonely. Isolated. Cold. Barren. Imprisoned.

"I know you might not like to hear this," she went on, "but somehow I don't think you'd mind me giving Kong a place in the spotlight too. Okay? Okay," she answered on his behalf. "You called yourself my white knight Jack, after saving me from that horrible, crazed leopard. But I knew that already. I knew when you were alongside me helping save Simba and Nala from the hyenas, and when you did your damnedest to protect me from those animals in their village on Skull Island. My white knight," she beamed tenderly.

"And I think of Kong that way too, for saving me from three savage dinosaurs. You should've seen it Jack. They had mouths like bear traps the size of beds, and were as big as trolleys! Kong could've easily saved his own skin, but he charged in and risked being killed himself, all to defend me."

"So from the bottom of my heart, I thank both of you, my _two _white knights. And not only did both of you save my life, you and Kong also saved me from loneliness and despair and self doubt. And you both showed me how extraordinary and amazing life is, the sheer possibilities and wonders it holds, if only we're willing to pay attention and take a leap in the dark. You both made me feel like a truly privileged _**somebody**_, when before I'd felt like a nobody, and in fifty other ways you and the ape were as perfect as any white knight could ever aspire to be, Jack."

"And the astounding thing," she declared, "is that in those pure, devoted, golden hearts of yours, neither of you ever asked for or demanded anything in return for all you did for me. Few fellas I've met are like that, Jack. They have the game rigged behind the scenes. But you both looked out for me not because you wanted money, or food, or sex, or to selfishly take advantage of me in some other way, but simply because you love me, and Kong loved me, and it was reward enough to have be by your side, loving you in return. And by just being who and what you are Jack, you and Kong taught me a powerful lesson, one that I can't easily put into words..." she choked out, eyes watering.

For several minutes, drawing quavering breaths, Ann Darrow sat silently in her darkened hospital room, a mess of emotions as she regarded her hero, her friend, her idol, her Adonis, her guardian, her teacher, her lover. And she thought too, of a magnificent, honest, noble, sentient, terribly lonely aging gorilla the size of a house, marooned on a craggy island.

"But goddamnit," she said in frustration, "I've _got _to put it out there, because Kong sure as hell can't hear me anymore, and this might be the last time I can pretend that you'll ever have a chance of hearing me again, that I can pretend for once, that someone I care about isn't going to be ripped away from me. What I'm trying to say is this...you helped me realize that I'm your white knight too, that I was Kong's guardian in a way as well. We have a responsibility to stand together, to stand watch over one another, like I'm standing watch over you right now. You've taught me that we're all valued and needed, even if we think sometimes that we're plain and lowly, nothing worth noticing. If we love and allow ourselves to be loved...well, that's the most precious gift in the world, worth more than all the gold in the world. That's what you and Kong have made me understand Jack, and because of that, I want to tell you, thank you."

For once, the paranoid, beaten little voice in Ann Darrow's head made no reply as she turned off the screen, and it kept silent while she stretched out on her mattress and drifted into slumber. And no nightmares troubled her for the rest of that artificially created night.


	36. Two Dreamlands

**This just may be the trippiest chapter I have ever written. I hope I've captured the sense of unreality both our heroes are feeling here, and of course, their personalities. **_

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Wake up dead/ bathed in red/ a world that doesn't exist/ yeah!…

Lyrics from Scum of the Earth, by Rob Zombie, 2000.

"And a voice was screaming, 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,_ Hunter S. Thompson, 1971.

**"(Jim) I think they think I'm gonna come after them. I feel like I want to. I feel like I wanna...The first one that comes near me, I'm gonna throttle em. That's what I'm gonna do, is throttle em. I don't like these things...(Jack) They're right there, their face is right in my face...they're...saying things, they're explaining things...They're saying 'Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, we won't harm you,' they say."** Excerpts taken from recorded testimonies of alleged abductees Jim and Jack Weiner under hypnotic regression in 1988, concerning a close encounter and 'missing time' incident with a UFO on the night of August 26, 1976.

Jack Driscoll would've sworn in a court of law that everything he saw and experienced in his stupor was just as real as anything that he'd experienced on Skull Island. Like De Quincey in his autobiographical _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, he seemed to live a thousand years in each passing second, so that the time rocketed by-and yet, barely even crawled.

He perceived himself as being restricted, confined in an amazingly tight space where he was curled up in a fetal position. As the walls of his globular prison compressed his flesh, it pained him horribly. It wasn't only the pressure either, although that was bad enough. Somehow, even in this protective globe, he'd received grievous injuries and bruises to his flesh as well.

But that was for later. Fortunately, Jack had the impression that whatever was surrounding him, it was thin and brittle. The only way to escape the crushing torment was to split this encasing substance.

Mustering all his strength, Jack forcefully kicked out with his back limbs, cracking, then breaking, then shattering the shell. His bare feet touched soil, which immediately collapsed around his legs, and he sensed that it wasn't the proper direction to go. Bracing his feet against the cool dirt, he pushed upward with the knuckles of his intermeshed hands, rapping them against the ceiling several times until it too split, and he victoriously burst out into the open air.

He gratefully crawled out, and realized with a sudden shock that he was a great nude giant, massive as a mountain. As he'd suspected, his body was horribly slashed and torn, many of his wounds exposing pale yellow fat and red muscle, a few even penetrating right down to the bone. Blood flowed, oozed, trickled in threads from each one, but curiously, not nearly as much as Jack would've expected from the severity of the injuries. He looked back at the egg he'd just burst out from. _Good grief, _he thought, _no wonder it hurt so bad, with all of me stuffed inside that and the way I've been wounded. But what could've possibly gotten to me, much less ripped me up so terribly, inside of there?_

Raising his head, Jack looked around, utterly at a loss. He had no idea where he was, who he was, or even _what_ he was. The landscape that greeted him too, was equally shocking, and dreadful. Devastation sprawled to each horizon. Everything was seared into charcoal, covered and blanketed in thick ash and pumice. Although it was midday, only a few weak, struggling rays of sunlight penetrated a thick veil of dark, ugly clouds, from which ash continued to drift down like gray snow.

It was chilly, and he saw no other living creatures. They must've either been killed or driven away by the disaster. He chose a random direction, and perplexed as he was, wandered off, each of his strides miles long. As he walked, the ash fall diminished, and then stopped falling. Soon after that, the chokingly thick clouds half-broke up, allowing the sun to shine through and warm him. It buoyed his sprits, and he was even more gratified to see life, as it always did, return from distant lands or peek out from its underground hiding places and make a fresh new beginning.

Distracted so, he didn't notice the small lake in front of him, choked with ash and algae, until he accidentally fell right into it. When he stood back up, the ashy mud congealed into a paste, sticking to his body. It made his skin, his hands, his neck, his trunk, and his feet prickle all over. Feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed at himself, Jack removed what he could manage with his fingers as he crouched on the shore. As the mud fell away, and the sky now became flawlessly clear, he realized that the mud had transformed him in some manner.

He was now an entirely new creature, a great feline covered in sleek yellowish-beige fur, with a luxuriant ruff of dark brown hair around his neck: a lion. This was fine with him. He knew now what sort of creature he was. He also knew that now he had a name, a title-Jabari-and his wounds and bruises were now healed.

For a while, Lion/Jack was delighted, since his body no longer hurt and bled, and he was now self-assured. He ran wherever he pleased, uttering groaning roars of excitement and gazing with pleasure at the returning grasses and trees far below. None of the creatures who dwelt among them though, as they bred and changed themselves, were large enough to really be worth eating, and Jabari-Lion/Jack-became desperately hungry.

His white-hot hunger made Jabari irritable, and he swelled up in fury, turning onto his colossal back and clawing at his pinched gut until he tore open the hide of his own breast and belly. From the cat's hide, Lion/Jack struggled free and emerged again, this time in the form of another gigantic man, all nut-brown and powerful.

This time, the separation had not gone smoothly. Jabari now had a sparse, shaggy coat of hair all over his body, like that of a Cape buffalo, although it remained thickest on the crown of his head. Like the wings of a butterfly that has just come out of its cocoon on a windy day, the teeth in his jaws were misshapen, a cross between a lion's and an ape's, with impressive flattened canines. His hands and feet still bore tough, leathery pads, but now the digits were tipped with claws that resembled a grizzly bear's, yet were more curved in form, and partly retractable. At his rear, an ebony, stumpy, prehensile tail hung and curled, half the length of what Lion/Jack's had been.

He stood, looking upon a world that was now lush and verdant with greenery, diademed and laced with shining lakes, ponds, rivers and creeks that were clean of ash and alive with fish. As he did, Jabari-Lion/Jack-felt the strangest sensation well up within him. It was subtle and comforting, yet deeply suggestive and even authoritative. It was poetry in _emotion_, in a way, like bubbles rising to the surface of water and then placidly popping.

_{You have a task to do here, Jabari.}_

_A task? What task?_

_{To help repopulate the land, so that it is home to many, various, living beings once more.}_

_They seem to be doing that pretty nicely on their own. In fact, many have even taken on bodies that are nothing like the ones they had when I first saw them._

_{Yes Jabari, but that's because the beings you see here, with their warm, hairy bodies and the milk they feed to their young, have just gotten a wonderful chance to shine. They've been waiting for it a long time, and are now seizing the moment in earnest. But there are other creatures that are still trapped underground and held captive in the clouds, from a time before the hairy beasts you see became so lucky. You must free them Jabari. Only do not dig too deep. Do _not _dig too deep!}_

So Jabari went about the duty that he'd been silently assigned. Using all the strength in his massive, coiled shoulders, he clawed the sky above him with his fingers, and scored pits into the earth at his feet wherever he walked. From the slashes in the sky, a cacophony, a rainbow, a storm, of birds fell out-eagles, macaws, weaverbirds, herons, pheasants, warblers, pelicans, teal, crows, hummingbirds, finches, birds of paradise, plovers, quail-taking flight in all directions to call and nest in the trees, on the cliffs, on the beaches, some in flocks, some alone. Wherever he dug into the earth, frogs, toads, salamanders, caceilians, crocodiles, caimans, pythons, geckos, vipers, monitor lizards, iguanas, rat snakes, tortoises, pond turtles, sea turtles, water snakes and other older, cold-blooded beasts cautiously scurried and slithered out into the invigorating sunlight.

Seeing the sheer beauty of these creatures, and their great joy at being set free made Lion/Jack happy himself, and he became all the more eager in his digging. But in one place, near a coast, he became so eager that he paid no mind to how long he clawed into the soil, and burnt his fingers in molten rock. Jabari howled in pain, and shook his hands from where the lava had burnt them as he stood up and ran to the great ocean that was nearby, wading out and gratefully plunging them into the sea.

When he returned, he saw that strange, shocking creatures were rushing out of his deepest hole. Many were flesh-eaters, frightfully hideous and vicious, and even many of those who thrived on plants were bellicose and savage, in the name of protecting what was theirs. Lion/Jack somehow understood that these beasts came from a time even _further_ back than the older types of animal that had been already liberated from the shallow holes.

Some, like massive apes, elongated fish with viperfish heads, and grotesque invertebrate monsters that were part slug, part hagfish, had been buried so deeply and for so long that they'd actually warped into beasts all their own, resembling no other creature that had ever walked the planet. Whether they'd had biological precedent or were revoltingly unique, their accidental liberator knew with a shuddering certainty that they had all been supposed to remain underground forever. And all of them had a deep, seething, absolute _hatred_ for humankind.

The curious, silent speaker who had set him about his duty did not rebuke or even talk, but Jabari knew anyway that he'd done something very bad, and that the entity had seen. Hurriedly, he hurled enormous amounts of dirt and stone into the great hole, blocking it up and preventing any more of the horrid creatures from escaping. Then, he ran inland and in a vast circling motion, herded all the abominations that were running free over the earth-giant insects, apes, centipedes, crabs, horned dinosaurs, naked flying rodents, massive meat-eating dinosaurs, and great eel-like fish with crystal swords for teeth-right to the coast. They fled before him like mice, and at length, he had them all bunching together with the sea at their backs.

Not knowing what else to do, Lion/Jack plunged his claws deep into the earth around the monsters and used them to cut loose the chunk of land that he'd driven them onto. Gathering it up into his arms, he brutally kneaded the earth he held several times so that it would be easier to carry, then waded out far into the ocean until the water was up to his collarbone, placing the great mound of earth on the seafloor. This new island would be a mountainous, warped prison for all these horrible, violent, obsolete beasts, where they wouldn't be able to terrorize or hurt anyone ever again-except for each other and outside visitors of course. And that was fine with him.

Embarrassed and humbled, Jabari was far more cautious as he excavated the last several shallow pits. Then at last, he felt and knew that his work was done. But the work had made him hungry, and he was again faced with the dilemma that although his efforts had caused many more types of animals to come into the world, not one of them was still big enough to sustain him. Nor was there enough fruit or leaves or even grass to possibly feed such a vast giant.

As the time passed, Lion/Jack tried to live off of what paltry meals he could scrape together, but still became hungrier and ever hungrier. He went without food for so long in fact, that his body shrank. His tail disappeared. His coat of hair nearly vanished. His skin became sallow and pinkish, and his impressive claws atrophied into broad, no-account nails. His teeth degenerated from formidable weapons into mere, pathetic corn-kernel pebbles.

Now Jabari had reached the point where instead of being as huge as a mountain, he wasn't much larger than a grown man. All the same though, he remained much stronger than any human, and he also knew, with an interior certainty, that he was an immortal being as well. Even better in the short term, despite the drastic reduction of his dental array, he was now _finally_ able to eat filling meals, treating his palate to whatever it fancied.

For a while, he walked here and there across the earth, through forests, over hills, and across plains. He slept, drank, rested and ate wherever he liked. Although he sometimes killed them to enjoy their meat, all the animals hailed and honored him, calling Jabari their lord and friend.

But after some more time had passed, Jabari became lonely and unhappy. He saw that all the male plants and animals that shared the world with him had wives, and he was the only one who did not. However, he also noticed that many of the males lived by themselves, and only got together and mated with their females for a brief time. Perhaps, if there was a wife for Jabari to find, she was living by herself too! He would just have to go out and search.

Lion/Jack kept his eyes open, and looked and looked, but he found no sign of a wife, or indeed, any other being like him in his wanderings. This made him very, very sad.

One day, still hoping to find a companion, he came down to drink at a beautiful pool of water, ringed with reeds and bearing floating lotuses. Jabari knelt, and put his hands into the water to steady himself while he drank. As he did so, a sharp stone, half-hidden in the sand, cut deep into the side of his palm. Crying out in pain, he leapt to his feet and flicked his injured hand through the air several times. Drops of his blood flew into the air, and two landed on a lotus bud.

Cursing and growling, he used the fingers of his uninjured hand to clamp the wound shut underwater until the blood stopped flowing. Now more cautious about where he put his hands, the irritated Lion/Jack moved to another place, drank, and turned to leave.

Suddenly, he heard a swishing noise behind him. Jabari turned around, and saw to his amazement that a lotus bud, the one where drops of his blood had landed, was growing to an enormous size, becoming larger and larger until it was almost as tall as he was. Then, it radiantly opened up to the world, and as they fell back, its petals revealed an angel. He knew right away that this was a female for him, standing on the massive lotus, and that her name was "woman."

Slim, gracile, and petite, her curled hair, yellow as fall grass, blew in the wind, offsetting her ivory skin. Eyes as blue as sapphires sparkled above a rounded, softly contoured nose, and sleek, full lips curved in a tentative, demure greeting. Like him, she was completely naked. He felt no discomfort or disgust at this awareness. It only added to, accented, her incredible beauty and aura of peaceful grace.

She stepped out of the blossom's heart and onto the broad petals. There she paused, like the loveliest sprite, uncertain and timid. Noting this, he respectfully remained quiet and still. Simply being able to behold her was ecstasy enough. Stepping into the shallow water, ripples spread from around each ankle as she walked toward him. Every swinging movement of her pale legs was enchanting.

On reaching him, she stopped, and gave another shy, soul-filling smile, her limpid blue eyes sweeping over his figure now. Jabari/Jack wondered if she was still too nervous to touch him.

"It's okay," he tenderly assured her. And then, a fulfilling, ecstatic truth flooded through his brain. She took delight in his form too! She loved his sharp male scent, the power visible in his shoulders, chest and arms, the light in his dark green eyes and his thick square jaw, his wider cheekbones and darker complexion.

He took her smooth, delicate hands into his own with a profound, exultant thrill.

"I am Man," he told her simply as their eyes remained linked by that wonderful magic.

"I am Woman," she responded in a voice like birdsong.

Once more, Jabari heard and felt that strange, commanding voice from within bloom, except now he just knew that this creature, who called herself Woman, heard it too now.

{_That is right. Your name is no longer Jabari, but now Man, and it will always be so. So too, the mate I have created for you out of your own blood shall be called Woman forevermore.}_

_Thank you, _Man/Jack whispered in deep gratitude. _Now I will never again know loneliness._

_{No. But your gift will come with a price, as all things do. And if you accept, you will also have to take on profound responsibilities.}_

_What is the price?_ Man/Jack asked in trepidation.

_Please, do not make it too high for my love!_, Woman begged touchingly on his behalf.

_{If you choose to have Woman as your companion, friend, and mate, you and your descendants will become creatures of sex and of mortal tissue, just like all the other animals in this world.}_

_That means we'll be stripped of our immortality, and so means that we can die…can be slain, _Man/Jack understood with a searing, terrible shock. He bit his thin lower lip hard for several seconds. But as he locked eyes with Woman and searched her face, there wasn't any doubt as to what his decision would be.

_Yes. My choice is __**yes**__, _he proclaimed fiercely. _And what are the responsibilities I must consign myself to? Hurl them at me! I'll take those tasks on without a moment's hesitation!_, he shouted, making Woman smile in joyous delight.

_{Woman came into existence by the shedding of your blood Man. That means she is your partner, a __part__ of you. She has her innate courage and strength, but she also depends on and finds great confidence in your own. So tell me this Man, are you willing to shed your blood in her name? Are you willing to be her best friend? Are you willing to fight for her life and for her honor? Are you willing to share your heart and soul with her, give her the respect she deserves? Are you willing to provide for and nourish her? Most of all, are you willing even to _die_ for her?}_

_Oh, __**yes, yes, yes and yes! Yes one hundred, three hundred, five hundred, a thousand times yes to every single duty you've asked of me!**_ Jack fearlessly, resolutely shouted, already taking this angel named Woman into his secure embrace.

"Yes, I would gratefully bleed and die for you," he decreed to her in a husky whisper, hand stroking her curls and feather soft, warm cheek.

"Do you speak true?" she queried.

"The greater sadness and agony would be to fail at my duty, and you will never see that day come," he earnestly vowed.

_{Then go Man, with your Woman to fill the world. Woman, go with your Man. The two of you will have no weapons, no fur or feathers, no speed, no crushing bite or slashing claws to defend yourself against the world's dangers. But you will have your love, your bravery, your cunning, your imagination, your critical thinking, your agile hands, your gift for making and using tools, and your ability to make fire your servant. Use them all to fullest advantage, and one day your race __**will**__ spread to the ends of the earth!}_

After that, Man/Jack sensed nothing further. Giddy and flushed, he took Woman by the hand, and laughing, showed her through the forests and the fields, telling her the names of the flowers, the birds, the spiders, the antelope, the trees and the other wonders around them. In one small field, a great rainbow painting of wildflowers, they stopped and crashed down into them, side by side. Looking into his mate's soft face, Man/Jack knew that he wanted to kiss her, and clutch her beautiful form to his own while he did.

She accepted. It was an indescribably sweet, world-encompassing feeling, like eating heated honey, only even better, a linking in every aspect between them. He put his tongue into her mouth, and now began to position her in the flowers so that he was lying on top of her, broad hands caressing up and down her body as he was driven by an exotic, yet powerfully seated and deeply satisfying urge. _I am Eros, I am Cupid, I am Min, I am Lono, I am Kamadeva, I am Quetzalcoatl, I am Svetovid, I am Wollunqua, I am Osiris, I am Kokopelli-_

His new mate's eyes widened into terrified blue puddles, and she screamed, "Look out!"

The strange, clenching new sensation of fear clutched at Jack's breast, and he whipped around, leaping into a squat and putting up his fists, naked and essentially defenseless against the horror rushing towards them. The beast somewhat resembled a leopard, but was like no leopard ever seen on earth, a thing unto itself.

This leopard was twice as big as normal, and had six legs instead of four, partly sprawling like those of a crocodile-and each one was unmistakably an instrument of slaughter. Only the middle three toes were normal, the dewclaw and little toe replaced by great meathooks of chitin, like a grasshopper's claws. The cat's face was sooty black in color, pierced through the forehead, septum, nostrils and cheeks by pieces of bone, as if someone had tried to experiment with giving it warthog tusks and gotten rather too carried away.

Its abnormally huge eyes glowed a terrible orange-yellow, elliptical rattlesnake pupils heightening the demonic glare-and yet, curiously, there was a sort of horribly blank, robotic aspect to that gaze as well, and a panicked Jack fancied he saw a mosaic pattern sketched across each organ. It all combined to produce a countenance that was so hideous, there was almost something seductive about it.

The beast's teeth were like those of a proper leopard, but just behind them were greedily gnashing, protrusible mouthparts perpendicular to the cat's dentition, a powerful, serrated slicing horror that yearned to chop into his living flesh. Rows of semiconical scales protruded through its fur and ran down its back.

Jack had only just enough time to stand and face this hellish monster before it was on him. With the manic strength of desperation, he gave the leopard monster a hard right hook to the jaw, gasping as one of those paws slashed his arm. That punch was enough to give the cat-demon pause for a few moments however, and it drew back a few steps, uttering a grunt as it shook its head. Jack used this as an opportunity to grab his angel's hand and run for his life through the forest.

As he did, he heard the leopard-beast cry in a voice that was part chalkboard screech, part grunting bellow, "So! Once more, as you are so irritatingly prone to do, you escaped me once again Jack Driscoll! But you and your Ann won'tbe able to evade me forever! I hate you beyond what words can express Jack," it frothed, snarled, "and I _**will not stop hunting you until I see you **__**DEAD IN THE DIRT**__**!**_

And if I didn't kill you today, or yesterday, or the day before _that_, I promise you that I will later…someday soon," it vowed, an ominous growl that filled the entire world. "Yes, someday _very_soon."

Suddenly Jack was so terrified that he desperately wanted to become a giant again, even if it meant bearing those same terrible wounds. And instantly he _was_ a giant once more, wounded even worse than before and as big as a mountain, _rivers_ of his own blood flowing across the dirt like the cursed Nile in Exodus-

Slowly, as if it was struggling up through seaweed to reach the surface of the ocean, Jack Driscoll's mind reentered the waking world. The realization came to him that his eyelids were closed. They also felt so, so heavy, and he was sorely tempted to let the blackness reclaim him again.

But then he heard a hushed voice coaxing, "Jack. Mr. Driscoll. Can you hear me Mr. Driscoll?" The speaker seemed to be both authoritative and concerned at once, and the playwright figured he might as well make them happy by responding.

Glaring light, a white ceiling, and ivory walls greeted him on coming around. He blinked, owl-like, in confusion, mind groping for fragments of possibilities. Suddenly, Jack remembered his mauling by Nduli, and how he'd regained consciousness for a time, only to black out again on the rhino's leathery, dusty back. This whiteness, these antiseptic scents in his capacious nostrils...did it mean that he was dead? If so, being deceased wasn't nearly as bad as he'd imagined it to be. That, or his Sunday School teacher had been overly pessimistic about where the playwright and his brothers would all eventually end up after shuffling off this mortal coil.

Weak as he felt, he politely responded to the speaker who was at the left edge of his field of vision, muttering, "Yes, I can hear you."

"Excellent. Great to have you back, Mr. Driscoll. You had us awfully worried there a few times," the voice, infused with satisfaction and relief, informed him.

_Great to have me back? Huh?_ Jack thought, what was left of his mind reeling in confusion. At the same moment, as his level of alertness rose, the writer suddenly realized there was a subdued, aching sensation, radiating out from multiple areas of his body. That did seem to be a pretty good indication that his body and soul were still bonded together. After all, wasn't the idea that you would never suffer physical pain again one of the few presumed advantages of being deceased?

More flashes of understanding came to him, one after another in quick succession or even together, like flashes of lightening during a summer storm. His head and abdomen were wrapped up in some sort of gauze. The tissues of his mouth felt terribly dry, covered in a sticky, clotted sheen of well-dried saliva. There was some sort of rectangular object fitting between his buttocks, which he figured was some kinda bedpan, and a catheter threaded up the shaft of his penis. Equal parts gratitude, embarrassment, humiliation, and disgust swept through him at the knowledge.

He was on large doses of painkillers, otherwise the agony of his wounds would've been unendurable. And he was currently in a hospital. But how in Christ's name could he have gone from the middle of the African plains to a respectable treatment facility in the amount of time needed to save his life? For that matter, where was Ann, and how was she faring?

All of these revelations visited Jack Driscoll in seven seconds. Additional ones were deferred when the speaker thoughtfully inquired, "I'm sure you must feel mighty thirsty. Would you like some water?"

Turning his head to the left, Jack saw a woman dressed in a pale blue shirt and pants looking down at him with brown eyes, her straight brown hair held back by a clip. Strange garb for a nurse, if that's what she was.

"In the worst way," he mumbled.

Looking over her shoulder, the woman requested, "Custavila, could you get our patient a bottle of water?"

"Sure thing, friend Pam," the voice responded. _That_ was a voice that caught Jack's attention. It sounded very much like normal English...yet there was something unnatural underlying it, a musical, staccato clicking and trilling, almost like the calls of a chipping sparrow.

Gingerly, Jack levered himself up on his elbows to get a better luck at the speaker. What he saw nearly stupefied him with disbelief and shock and incomprehension.

It wasn't an especially big or strong-looking creature, maybe 3 and a half feet tall, 40 pounds in weight. But it was very big indeed when it came to sheer weirdness and horrendous looks. It looked like it was mostly crab, but also part dragonfly and part stick insect, six sucker-tipped legs, thin as bones, dangling underneath. It hovered on four transparent wings, iridescent rainbows of light reflecting off their surfaces.

This surreal creature might've been a fascinating curiosity for Jack to regard if it hadn't looked quite a bit like an insect, and even more importantly, hadn't been standing _right there beside him_!

There was another creature too, which looked something like a large bear cub with red hair like that of a dog, and was just observing.

"Jesus Christ!" the playwright shrieked in terror, eyes darting back and forth between the two creatures, his attention mostly focused on the insect one. He suddenly felt very chilled, helpless, and terrified. In an adrenaline-fueled spasm, he sat bolt upright in the hospital bed with a strangled, inarticulate cry, only distantly aware of a red, hooking pain as the IV tugged fiercely at his flesh, and his healing ribs shifted.

"Sir, Sir, don't panic," the human nurse gently yet firmly urged him, pressing at his chest. "Please calm down. You'll only hurt yourself even more if you do."

Although he'd only known her for a grand total of half a minute, the presence of the nurse, a member of his own kind, was partially reassuring, and Jack fiercely latched onto it.

Fear and dread and a snarling hatred whirled around under his breastbone as he fervently snapped, "Keep that goddamn bug thing the hell away from me! It'll attack and eat me while I'm helpless like this!"

"Do not be afraid, I won't touch or harm you," the light blue insect creature assured him, something nearby translating its trills and rapid clicks. At the same time, Jack felt a _something _in his head. It was like a warm, gentle hand was reaching into his skull and tenderly stroking his psyche. It reminded him of how his mother would comfort him as a boy after he'd woken from a nightmare.

"There's a strange, pleasant feeling in my head all of a sudden," Jack commented in puzzlement. "What's going on? Not that I don't like it," he added.

"We Cinrusskin," Custavila helpfully replied, "have evolved the ability to be empathic. That means we can feel the unspoken emotional radiation of others, while at the same time, project feelings of friendship, comfort, and other positive sensations into the minds of other living entities."

"I know you're probably just trying to make me let down my guard before you kill me in this vulnerable position," Jack dryly growled, "but that still is quite a fascinating ability to have."

"I assure you Mr. Driscoll, I've already come by your room several times during your period of healing, sedative-influenced unconsciousness," Custavilla stated. "If I had desired to consume you, that would've been the best occasion for it, with no suffering inflicted on you, and a minimum of danger posed to me."

"You've been around me before? I hope to Christ you didn't touch me," Jack shuddered, "you revolting _insect!_"

"No Mr. Driscoll, I did not make physical contact with your form. Disregard my outer appearance and know we only mean you well," it advised him, a feeling of friendship and comfort filtering into the New Yorker's brain.

"Yeah, Custavila and the other Cinrusskin working at Sector General are the _least _likely beings to hurt an Earth-human," the bear-cub creature chimed in, a tonal, purring background to its words.

Despite his somewhat reduced dread about the insect thing, those two words really grabbed the writer's attention. "_**Earth-human? **_What in the hell do you mean by that? And where am I? Where's Ann?" he desperately cried, suddenly feeling horrible about not having thought of his Venus's welfare sooner.

"I know you'll have a lot of difficulty believing this Mr. Driscoll," Pam told him, "but you're in the Critical Care Unit of the DBDG level-that's the code we use to designate warm-blooded oxygen breathers-of Sector 12 General Hospital Station, located right between the Milky Way Galaxy and the Greater Magellanic Cloud. Earth-human is the term used to distinguish us Homo sapiens from the extraterrestrials, like Dr. Custavila here, who is a Cinrusskin, and Registered Nurse Freschu-Plo, a Nidian."

"So you're saying I'm in some Martian-run hospital, _waaayyy_ out in deep space," Jack responded, giving her a sidelong, confused, baffled look. "I guess with these two wacko-looking things in front of me, I have no reason to disbelieve you, but how in Christ's name did **that** happen? And even more importantly, _where is Ann?_ If you hurt her, there'll be hell to pay once I'm out of this bed!"

"I assure you that Ann is doing just fine Mr. Driscoll," Pam informed him. "In fact, she can probably answer many of your questions just as well as we can. Would you like to talk to her? And _please_ try to stay calm. Your blood pressure is too high."

Excitement and yearning and pleasure coloring his voice, Jack grinned, saying "You absolutely bet I would!"

Pulling what Jack guessed was a version of a walkie-talkie from an equipment belt it was wearing, the Cinrusskin pressed some buttons and said into it, "Friend Pickering, this is Doctor Custavila. Could you please inform Ann Darrow that her male bond-partner has regained awareness and is now eager to communicate with her?"

"By all means Doctor," a male voice replied. "And if her actions and emotions are any sign, I'm sure she'll be just as eager to talk to and see him."

"I'm going to rev up the holograph emitter," the Nidian, Freschu, told Pam before strolling out of the room.

Turning to the human nurse, the perplexed playwright commented, "You know, I can't help wondering, how is it that all you folks are able to talk in and understand each other's languages, and I can do the same?"

"Well, at the center of this hospital, we have a massive, cylinder shaped computer that uses ultra-"

"Computer? Sorry, but that word means nothing to me," Jack responded. "Less than nothing, actually. And so does holograph, for that matter."

"At the risk of oversimplifying, a computer is an extremely complex machine that processes inconceivably massive amounts of information with an adeptness that the human brain could never possibly achieve, and a holograph is essentially a picture made of light."

Jack doubtfully nodded, only partially understanding. The names of each device did seem to back up what she was claiming though.

"Anyway, ultra-sensitive microphones in the ceiling of each room and hallway pick up the speech of any being in the hospital-say, a Nidian-and transmit it to the computer. A program then uses visual feedback from the station's cameras to determine which species are in the room or corridor the Nidian's words was received from. Then the language is translated into the spoken tongue of each species in the vicinity and broadcast simultaneously over the speakers. It all happens in less than a second."

"Wow," Jack exhaled in awe. "There's a lot I still can't figure out about your explanation mam, but I think I get the general picture all the same. In fact..." He trailed off, an idea creeping up within him.

"Je suis content de renconter vous tous," he politely addressed the antiseptic-scented, cold air. To his delight and wonder, an English translation of his French phrase responded back. "I am pleased to meet you all."

"And we are as well," the Cinruss replied sincerely.

Now Jack tried the same greeting in his mother's native language, Polish. "Mam przyjemność spotkać się wszystkie." Once more, he was answered in English, and he chuckled lightly in enthusiastic delight.

His thrill at such amazing technology began to master Jack, and he then tried German. "Ich freue mich, treffen sie alle." Same incredible result as before.

What about Yiddish? "Ikh bin tsufridin-"

At that point, he was interrupted by a whirring sound as a sort of small, rectangular panel, about the size of a saucer, descended from the ceiling on a sort of mechanical arm. After moving down about a yard, the panel stopped.

Jack was aware of the hair on his nape erecting as he stared at the little screen, wonder and trepidation mingling within him. Who knew what was about to happen?

And then it flicked on, a magical thing.

A solid, yet translucent, cone of light darted two feet into the air at a 35 degree angle, expanding to form an image. And in the image, an awestruck Jack saw the face of the angelic being from his dreams, _his _angel!

How was this machine projecting this image, making a picture in thin air?

Then Ann's face lit up with pure joy, and he realized, not only could he see her...she could see him too!

"Jack!" she cried in delight.

"Ann!" he responded warmly, gratefully, dried spittle thickening his voice.

Thankfully, the teddy-bear creature returned with a bottle of water in a transparent plastic, and Jack told his girlfriend, "Give me a moment, will you sweetheart? I have a yen for water like you wouldn't believe right now."

Giving a silvery laugh, Ann replied, "I can imagine. You've been sedated for six days, after all, so go right ahead."

"Would you like me to open it for you?" the Nidian politely offered him.

"No, I'll be fine," Jack smiled wearily.

Gingerly, giving muffled, staccato groans at the aches flaring in his flesh, Jack raised himself into a half-seated posture and took the proffered bottle from the cuddly alien. As a physician's son himself and an intelligent man in general, he knew better than to start gulping it down right away and risk vomiting or choking, despite his fearsome thirst.

Twisting the cap off while his eyes stayed on Ann, he let a little of it pour on to his tongue, enjoying the cleansing sensation of the water saturating his mouth tissues and dispersing the cotton-ball taste. He had a little more, swallowing, than downed two-thirds of the bottle before reclining back with a satisfied sigh.

"Cripes, did I ever need that," he yawned, "although, considering the environment I've found myself in, I could really, really use a glass of whiskey too!" he wryly added.

"I don't think your circulatory or nervous systems would approve of that right now though Mr. Driscoll," Pam playfully cautioned.

Turning back to the light-picture, Jack told his dame, "You don't know how happy I am to see you-among other things, it's solid proof that I haven't gone completely bonkers yet, although that could change. Where are you right now?"

"And I'm so happy to see you awake and okay Jack," Ann replied, her voice quivering with heartfelt relief and pleasure. "You really had us concerned a few times."

"How's that?" he prodded, apprehension kneading his entrails while a grim interest piloted his mind.

"Well..." Ann vacillated, fidgeting. "You sure that you really want to know?"

"Hey, whatever happened, it's clear that I got through it and am probably in smooth waters now. I can take the truth perfectly fine doll."

Ann gave a brief smile at the term of endearment before abruptly becoming grave.

"I didn't see it myself Jack, but Doctor Zhong, the lead surgeon who operated on you, told me that you came very close to dying on the operating table, and he had to shock you to get your heart beating again."

"Jesus Christ," Jack moaned sickly, horror and a red band of fear constricting his heart. "That is too damned _close _for my liking. Thank God he was able to save me," he shuddered.

Cobalt eyes watering, Ann nodded, adding, "And then, despite all the precautions the medical staff took, your wounds became septic, and you ran a blazing fever...I watched through this very machine, and it was-so horrible," she concluded, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand.

Jack really had no answer for all that frightening knowledge, except for the clench in the pit of his stomach and the arctic quiver that migrated south from his atlas vertebra to his coccyx. He _did_ know though, that he was awfully damned sick of brushing up against eternity.

"As for where we are," Ann continued at length, "we're both on this huge hospital, floating in the middle of outer space, called Sector 12 General Hospital-at least, that's what I've been told," she added. "Now, it has 384 different levels, each of which is specially constructed for a specific class of Martian creatures, like the air they breathe, the temperature they like, and so on. You and I are both on level DBDG, since we breathe oxygen and are warm-blooded."

Thinking it over, Jack felt his mind reeling at the concept. This was like something out of H.G. Wells.

"But where exactly are you on this DBDG level?" he asked of her after a time.

"Not all that far actually," she said. "Since my wounds weren't as bad as yours are, I got sent to the minors area, as they call it. As for you, you're in the Critical Care Unit right now."

"I wish you were here with me," Jack said longingly.

"God knows I do too," Ann replied wistfully, a hint of bitterness to her voice. "But the biggies here didn't want me taking up a berth in your area that someone who was badly hurt could need in a twinkling."

"Well, I can sort of understand that," he said. "How in the hell did we get here though?" he enquired from his pillow. "Did some kinda spacecraft come down and pick us up?"

"No," Ann said, shaking her head, "It wasn't any craft that got us here, believe me."

"Then what was it?"

Locking her gaze with his, her features neutral, Ann Darrow said in a monotone, "You're probably not going to believe, much less understand, a lot of what I'm gonna tell you Jack. Indeed, there's a lot about it I don't understand-_can't_ understand!-myself. But this is on the level, trust me. Remember that green-tan flash of light that surrounded us before we dropped into the elephant graveyard?"

He nodded. "You bet I do."

"Well, that turns out to have been Rafiki's doing, although it was an accident. But to make a long story short, after finding us, he went outside the Pridelands, and with the help of another witch doctor, Mganga, used his magic to create some kinda mystical door to another **universe**, this one, where we could be he-"

"What the hell!" Jack exclaimed in surprise. "Ann, that's not possible! There's no proof that there's another universe besides this one, nor even any real _hint_ that there could be another!"

"Ah, but that's because you hail from a time when quantum physics was in its very infancy," Pam supplied. "We'll have to give you a condensed version of what science has discovered after you've healed more."

"I don't understand it either Jack," Ann shrugged helplessly, "but the reality sure seems that way."

"Well," Jack dryly replied, looking particularly hard at the two aliens sharing his hospital room, "after what you and I have both seen and experienced lately, I think the words 'not possible' ceased to have any meaning or relevance for us long ago."

"Heh, tell me about it," Ann chuckled, a slightly unhinged edge to her voice. "At any rate, he used powerful magic to open a green, swirling passageway to...well, to _here_, and sent us through."

"Any idea what he plans to do next?"

"I wish I knew Jack," Ann sighed in frustration, as she tilted her head back, running her fingers through her cleaned curls. "I'd assume that Rafiki is waiting for us to heal up again and become fit, at which point he'll send us back to our true, original world-does that ever feel crazy to say, I can tell you! And I hope to Jesus its New York he has in mind as our drop off point," she added.

"Has he come by at all, talked to you?"

"Nope. However, Doctor Zhong, the surgeon who worked on you, told me that Rafiki had-communicated-with the head administrator two days ago about how you were doing, and I have no reason to disbelieve him."

Jack's eyelids felt like an invisible hand was drawing them down, and his head was a cinderblock.

"Ann," he muttered, "as desperately as I want to keep finding out more about this next wacko place we've gotten into, or just talk to you in general, I'm afraid my flesh is just a bit too weak right now to stay on the ball."

"Hey, don't worry," Ann tenderly assured him. "The more you sleep, the quicker your body will get fixed up too, so do it whenever you can. And remember, no matter how scary some of these Martian folks might look, they're as safe and friendly as the wild dogs were. Be seeing you," she smiled, reaching off the frame.

And then the square shaft of luminescence, on which moving pictures of light were painted as they happened, snapped off.

A few moments later, the fatigued, yet comforted, playwright's eyelids made this second mad, screwy world go dark as well.

* * *

Her heart so stuffed with joy, relief, optimism, fondness, and excitement it felt like it could split, a grinning Ann almost missed the knock on her door.

"May I come in, Miss Darrow?" It was her new best friend, Doctor Aaron Zhong.

"Of course!"

As he opened the door, Ann saw that he was holding a full bottle of champagne in his right hand, two wine glasses in his left.

"You much of a drinker Miss Darrow?" he asked.

"Um, no," she replied, feeling distinctly uncomfortable about what the liquor and the surgeon's congenial demeanor might imply.

"Well, neither am I," Zhong grinned. "Still, certain occasions almost beg for a celebratory swallow or two."

Relieved that he wasn't trying to court her or anything, and pleased that he was clearly feeling equally gay about her Jack of Hearts coming around, Ann replied, "I can agree with that."

Aaron poured a glass for each of them as Ann commented, "You know, it would've meant a lot to Jack to get a visit from the doctor who saved his life."

"No doubt it would," Zhong replied. "But there'll be plenty of time for that later. He had more than enough to deal with already without me in the mix."

"And without me telling him that I'm beating a mild case of malaria, although we both know I was never in any serious danger," Ann added. "That would've made him even more of a bundle of nerves. Thank you for prescribing that preventative course of pills, by the way."

"You're welcome, Miss Darrow," Zhong said, taking a sip from his glass. "Always wise to do things before the fact. You were right on the money telling him to sleep as much as he can too."

They both toasted Jack, and drank.

At length, Ann asked, "Any clue how long until he'll recover?"

"Since most of his wounds only affect muscle tissue, I'd guess three, four weeks."

"But after they heal, he's going to be rather weak for a while, won't he?"

"Yes, he'll be quite weak at first. But he'll gradually regain his old vigor, and we have excellent food and exercise facilities to help him out in that department. So in six weeks he'll probably be back in fighting form, if you'll pardon the pun, with no permanent damage."

"And then what happens?" Ann asked, thinking of her conversation with Jack in the moonlight underneath Pride Rock in a different universe.

"I don't know," Zhong exhaled thoughtfully. "I guess that's up to Rafiki Miss Darrow. I don't see any reason why he'd leave both of you at Sector General any longer than he had to though. Indeed, serious things would probably happen if he _didn't _take you back to your original universe and world."

_But what part of the globe _does_ he plan to bring us back to?_ Ann thought.

Then, the most likely possibility came to her, tantalizing and terrifying all at once-especially where Jack was concerned.

She decided to pour herself another glass of champagne, and quickly.

* * *

**Rob Zombie just plain rocks. So do reviews. **


	37. Time Heals All Wounds

**Good grief, I never would've imagined that this Sector 12 General Hospital portion of my crossover would become so _lengthy. _I wanted it to only take up three chapters or so, but I guess it just took on a life of its own, to the point where this fic now has not three, but _four _acts! Looking back, I probably should just have had Rafiki heal Jack with magic, one of the aliens induce hyperfast cellular regeneration, or something like that and save myself and you guys a lot of time. Thankfully, there's just one more chapter to go before the actual story gets going again. **

**As for this particular chapter, I felt it was now an appropriate time to press the fast forward button. And press it down hard. **

* * *

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe." Rutger Hauer in _Blade Runner_, 1982.

"Enter a world of pure imagination." Tagline for the 1971 movie _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_.

Pulling at an olive won't make it ripen faster-Italian Proverb.

During the next two and a half days, Jack Driscoll showed more and more encouraging signs of recovery. His intravenous tubes were removed, and so was the chest tube, his punctured lung having healed. He spent more time actively holding his head up when awake, looking around with interest and fascination at the activity and machines in his ward, asking questions when in the spirit, and drank more water.

"What is that thing called? What does that thing do? Is it dangerous? Are you dangerous! Can I have some more water? What species do you belong to buddy? So, what's your planet like? What's your culture like?"

36 hours or so after coming around for the first time, one of Jack Driscoll's waking periods was marked not by wonder or bewilderment about his surroundings, but unequivocal gratitude and pleasure. For that was the first occasion Doctor Aaron Zhong, Ph.D, was able to pay him a visit.

Now able to walk about her room, Ann watched the encounter remotely, through the holograph link. Initially somewhat surprised to see a Chinaman in the role of surgeon, Jack had become very emotional, tearing up as he shook a touched Aaron's hand in thankfulness and embraced the doctor, voice cracking as he told him, "I owe it to you Doc, big time. Thank you, thank you so much pal, I'm forever grateful."

Zhong assured him it was nothing, and then personally presented Jack with a plate of what Ann had informed him was one of the writer's favorite desserts, custard bread pudding with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. Soft, rich in energy, and easily digestible, it was a perfect first helping of solid food. A delighted Jack Driscoll tucked in, consuming three-quarters of the contents, holding a conversation with Aaron between bites, learning more about the circumstances of his arrival and what had happened over the past Terran week since then.

Ann knew that normally, Jack could beat his gums for two hours or more. In his current weakened state however, a twelve minute session was strenuous enough, and worn out, he returned to slumber. He slept a lot in general, really, as his flesh knit up.

Ann's wounds however, had already healed to the point where she could sit, stand, kneel, and as mentioned, walk short distances with only minor discomfort. Over the next three days, the last of her malarial symptoms disappeared as well. Still, she was in no shape as yet to walk the quarter mile through the winding maze of corridors, filled with all kinds of weird and exotic and ghastly looking beings, over to Jack's room in the recovery ward.

There was also the matter of the terrible, agonizing aches that flared up in her neck and back, courtesy of all the thrashing she'd endured while Kong had displayed with her over the remains of previous sacrificed women he may or may not have killed, and especially as he'd wildly struggled against the trio of tyrannosaurus. Sleeping on hard dirt or stone in Simba's world hadn't exactly helped matters either.

When she mentioned her spinal troubles to her Sciurid RN however, she reaped the reward of sweet relief in daily sessions with a superb Dwerlan chiropractor, and a back massage from an Eltan dame to follow it up. Their hands were soft and gentle, locating and pressing the afflicted portions of her spine with skilled precision. It really did wonders.

Now that Jack was out of immediate danger, she found herself able to more fully enjoy the diversions and activities on offer. There were mouth-watering treats and meals to be had, for instance. Some, like Snickers bars, Popsicles, and beef stew, she knew well. Others, like chocolate chip cookies and Fruit Roll-up's, were totally new to her, but eagerly accepted.

After going for so long without having a decent talk with a fellow dame, Ann made the most of the opportunity, shooting the breeze with both her human and Eltan nurses if they weren't too pressed for time, talking about men, hair care, their job history, their hopes, former flames, sharing cooking tips, and so on. It was immensely satisfying and indeed, reassuring.

Females belonging to other species could be rather more difficult to relate to, and there was always the danger of innocently offending them. In one instance, registered nurse Dhuituk, a Sciurid, had shown the actress a holograph picture of the squirrel-like alien standing with some ferret-like and chipmunk-like beings that were about two-thirds her height.

"How cute!" Ann remarked as she regarded the scene, feeling the corners of her mouth turn up. "Those must be your pets."

Dhuituk's tail went erect, bristling, and she gruffly barked-squealed, "My _pets?_ I should say not!"

Mortified, Ann felt her cheeks become heated as she amended, "I mean, they must be your friends. Friends. Sorry."

"Now you've got it," the Sciurid confirmed.

The hospital had various animals available to hold and pet, which they called "therapy animals." An unusual concept, but a delightful one in Ann's view-a black rabbit named Lola and a gray tabby called Max were two of her favorites. It was a pleasure to stroke their coats, to feel the warmth of their bodies against hers, to feel their ribs gently pump, to connect with their undemanding presence.

After spending time in a universe where animals had the power of speech and intelligence for two days however, sometimes Ann couldn't help but be temporarily bewildered by their failure to respond when she spoke to them, or have to remind herself that Lola, Max, and the other critters she handled were "dumb" beasts in more than one sense.

And although he was an entirely different species, as different from a lion as she was from a spider monkey, sometimes Max reminded the actress too much of Simba-and then her heart would be scorched by a terrible, despondent guilt. He'd told her he loved them, accepted them as family, and they'd ultimately betrayed him. Maybe there'd been nothing she could've realistically accomplished, other than getting herself killed as well, but the thought of how she'd chosen to let the lion prince die would forever gnaw at Ann's soul.

Then there were the nightmares, horrible visions that made her bolt up out of sleep with a yell, often bucking and struggling like a cottontail rabbit in a snare, some graphic to the point where they nearly made her throw up with nausea. The savages, the bat-wolves, the giant centipedes, the tyrannosaurs, they all got unwanted starring roles, making her mind cower in undiluted, crippling terror.

At last, about a week after she'd spoken to Jack remotely, Ann Darrow's flesh wounds had healed enough for her to comfortably and capably walk to where Jack was recovering in CCU.

While the slashes across her lower spine and ribcage still needed the stitches kept in, the magic of cellular mitosis had knit together enough muscle tissue so that it wouldn't be painfully yanked and plucked with each stride she took.

Seeing her progress, one of her nurses, Diane Lopez, had asked her if she felt like walking the distance to CCU, and paying Jack her first in person visit since the attack.

Her face lighting up like a searchlight, a thrilled Ann exclaimed, "You sure bet I do! Could you please lead the way though?"

"No problem," Diane said.

Dressed in a hospital gown, Ann stuck close to Diane as the RN led her through the three dimensional maze of white corridors on DBDG, regarding the kooky looking aliens moving around them with mixed interest and wariness. A Cinrusskin or two even flew over her during the journey.

After about twenty minutes, taking the stroll at an easy pace, they neared the room in the majors area where Jack Driscoll was being housed. Excitement and anticipation and joy swelled inside Ann with each step she took towards the door, held ajar.

She could hear him laughing riotously, that slightly nasal, purring chuckle she'd come to adore hearing. Evidently, it was about something on a television, and something bizarre at that, for Ann could hear, mixed with Jack's laughter, someone singing "Say, I don't think you're happy enough! That's right...I'll teach you to be happy! I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs! Now boys and girls, let's try it again. Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy-"

At that point, approaching the door first, Diane politely informed the playwright, "Mr. Driscoll?"

The sound from the TV came to a sudden halt. "Yes?"

"You have a special visitor here to see you."

Ann could sense his expectant delight touch stratospheric levels as she entered the room, pos-i-tive-ly _bursting_ with emotion and joy. There was a Kelgian in his recovery quarters, doing something or other, but the actress only had eyes for Jack, calling out his name and running to him as he called out hers.

She took his angular head in her hands, reveling in the warmth of his cheeks under her hands as he encircled her in his arms and pressed her to him as best he could and before she knew it, she was kissing him and he was kissing her back in a passionate, thrilling joining that she never wanted to end.

"Well, that didn't take very long," the Kelgian muttered.

They parted to draw breath, and Ann half closed her eyes, touching Jack's forehead with hers, inhaling his clean, musky scent and feeling those long fingers caressing her hair, each enjoying the moment, the realness of the other.

_Everyone goes away,_ Ann thought in astonished gratitude. _But for once, someone came back!_

She kissed him again, on the forehead, before drawing back and sitting in a chair Diane had thoughtfully brought over, still holding the hand of her Adonis.

"Before anything else happens," she said, "I just want to say, thanks Jack. Thanks for saving my life _and_ not dying on me," she smiled.

Giving that skewed grin, Jack responded, "Well, you're welcome Jane Port-oops, I meant Ann." making both of them laugh. "And I'm pretty glad I didn't die on you too," he wryly chuckled.

"How are you feeling now?" she asked.

"Better than the last time we talked face to face, but still weak as a newborn calf. And with all these stitches holding me together, I also feel a hell of a lot like Osiris after Isis put him back together again," he dryly added.

Diane laughed, saying "Good one!"

"Quite nice of her, really." Jack continued, ignoring her. "And you?"

"I'm doing fine enough," she assured him. "I can walk at a good pace already."

Jack gave a thin smile of satisfaction, than shook his head ruefully.

"A leopard," he muttered wryly.

"Yeah, a leopard," Ann repeated, flashing her teeth knowingly, in irony. She'd often thought the same thing. _It wasn't the huge or disgusting-looking or fever-dream things that got us in the end. _

"I really thought I'd had it," he said, the skin around his eyes contracting. "No more playing Tarzan or trying to emulate Sasha Seimel for me anymore-once was plenty."

Filled with the lunatic humor that sometimes comes after cheating death, Ann giggled, saying, "I said I'd love to have a spotted cat's hide to wear Jack, but you've really got to quit catching them with just your bare hands and a sharp stick!"

He laughed, replying, "That's why you should remind me to bring the shotgun along next time!" chuckling.

"A Tommy gun sounds even better," Ann muttered, as she regarded his healing injuries.

"And how. I don't know about you, but I'm awfully thankful to a certain blue-faced baboon wizard for getting us out of that jam, wherever he is," Jack commented, tone becoming more serious as he lay back against the mattress, pianist's hand still linked with hers.

"You and me both," Ann fervently agreed.

"And I'm sure happy that we're both here. Alive, I mean," he amended.

For a time, they didn't speak. They just _were_, mutually savoring the reunion.

"So," Ann asked at length, "they been treating my hero well?"

"Very well. The food and the entertainment sure are great, for one thing. I just had a tasty ham and cheese sandwich earlier, in fact."

"Speaking of which, what had you in such a spin just now on the television?"

"Oh, that. I was watching one of those silver and green record type things called DVDs that has this hilarious cartoon series on it called Ren and Stimpy. It's about this starved, rat-looking pink dog called Ren, and his friend Stimpy, a really stupid, fat, red cat-type creature. It has a lot of gross out, sick humor though, so I doubt you'd personally like it. I sure do though."

For the next twenty minutes, they talked about the hospital, the aliens, what each of them had been doing in the meantime, the strangeness of the place and the technology they'd both seen. Then, worn out, Jack reluctantly, regretfully told Ann that he was too pooped to stay awake any longer. Knowing how crucial it was that his body got as much rest as possible, she gave him one last hug, told him he was a great fella, the perfect man, and then allowed Diane to lead her back to her own room.

The next four weeks saw a progressive improvement in Jack's condition. Ann visited him often in the recovery ward, watching movies with him, laughing at cartoons, talking about whatever subjects struck them, and often just spending quality time together, taking a wordless delight in each other's company.

Ever compassionate, and knowing better than to rub salt into a wound, Ann never mentioned the gorge or how Jack had dragged her away from a beleaguered Simba during these times. Still, there was an unspoken indication Ann picked up from the wounded writer, a sense that he felt remorseful and embarrassed, and that if she expressed unease about something or someone in the future, he would no longer ignore her advice so flippantly. Although there was a part of her that could never fully forget, she accepted that Jack had chosen the only practical option in forcing her to make for the woods, so to speak. It was for the best.

Both Ann and the RNs were of the same mind in agreeing that not only did Jack need to sleep as much as he could, but eat as much as he could, even if he didn't have much in the way of an appetite. At first his desire for food was as vapid as he was, but it became more powerful as time went on. All the same, he was noticeably thinner, having lost quite a bit of muscle mass.

Not surprisingly, Ann's shallow flesh wounds healed long before his did, her stitches cut and removed by the agile hands of a Cinruss surgeon, producing a tickling sort of sensation as they slid out of her tissue.

After spending at least a decade of her life in a profession where cramped backstage dressing rooms and walk in closets were a matter of course, participating in magic tricks that often involved hunkering down in a tight space, and sharing restricted living quarters with three or more other dames-to say nothing of living on a tramp steamer for six weeks-Ann couldn't exactly be called claustrophobic.

Even so, being confined to the same room for days on end didn't sit well with her. She had to get out and be physically active. Thankfully, Doctor Zhong and the nurses notified her about DBDG level's gigantic recreation deck, which featured artificial solar light, a half-mile track for running or walking, a swimming pool, a tennis court, a faux beach of golden sand, a gym, and other attractive options for the athletically inclined.

Instead of having breakfast, lunch, and dinner brought to her by a human or Martian nurse, she now ate in the cafeteria, never quite getting used to the idea of sitting and eating alongside weird-looking beings from among the stars, even if many were awfully adorable and sweet.

Everything was a constant wonder, a delightful yet unreal waking dream. Sometimes it felt like an absurdist novel, sometimes like a child's fantasy come true.

It wasn't long at all until Ann Darrow knew her doctor and nurses not just as caretakers, but as extraordinary friends, and as time went by, she came to know the other inhabitants of the strange, surreal, futuristic multi-species zoo that was Sector 12 General Hospital.

More a few of the staff and patients were equally curious about her. After all, she and Jack had come from at least 200 years in the past _and_ a different universe at that!

So it was that she came to be on terms with the surgeons, the janitors, the nurses, the maintenance technicians, the cooks, the sector chiefs, the administrators, the interns, generals, lieutenants and colonels, and the members of the Monitor Corps in their dark green coveralls, whose job was to supply and maintain the station. They also acted as law enforcement and guards, carrying sidearms in hip holsters.

Sometimes-particularly when she'd recently visited Jack in his room-Ann would regard one of those holstered guns with a chilly longing, wishing that she had one and was back in the Pridelands world; she would use it, and she knew precisely whom she'd use it on.

There were other levels to the hospital, ones with mixtures of gases, temperatures, radiation levels, oxygen levels, and pressures that no human could survive unprotected. With reluctant permission from the head admin, and the experienced Dr. Lynn Menendez to show her the ropes, Ann got to indulge her curiosity and visit some of these levels after donning suitable, lightweight protective gear.

She met the water breathing Chalders on level AUGL, resembling 40 foot crocodiles with thick, knife-edged tails, and fleshy fins in place of legs. She met the three-legged, stork-like Eurils on MSVK, who liked dim light, high humidity, and were insatiably curious. Needless to say, they kept her busy answering questions for a long while.

She went to level PVSJ, home base for the chlorine breathing, blistered, repulsive looking Illensans, who would die if they made contact with water and had hearing sensitive enough to hear a feather sliding over a floor tile. On level SNLU, a hellishly cold place, she met the Vosans, creatures that breathed supercooled methane and looked like footstool sized, eight armed starfish with scales that sparkled and broke up the light like diamonds. Both Ann and Lynn had to wear thick full body suits to visit them, with a self-contained, powerful heating system inside each one, and inch thick soles of foam rubber.

This was on account of the fact that Vosans required temperatures close to absolute zero for their survival. At temperatures higher than eighteen degrees above absolute zero, the crystalline structure of their bodies would disintegrate, and at temperatures above 120 below Celsius, would essentially spontaneously cremate. They were also ultra-sensitive to audible sounds, which meant that visitors had to be as silent as possible, down to their very breathing and footsteps.

Despite having to wear the awkward protective suit, the otherworldly experience of seeing these dazzlingly beautiful, remarkable, wonderful beings as they noiselessly crept and glimmered through the methane fog was well worth the discomfort.

On level VTXM, Ann was introduced to the small, beetle like Telfi, who had a hive mind and fed on radiation. Most impressive of all were the Groalterri, of classification BLSU. Resembling gigantic, stocky octopuses at least twice Kong's size, they were bright red-orange in color, with four blue eyes spaced evenly around their head, a mobile mouth located on top. Unlike an octopus, their tentacles had no suckers, alternately ending in flat, sharp blades, or finger like appendages for fine manipulation.

As a vaudeville girl like her mother before her, the urge to show her skills and just _perform_, to feel the rush of pleasure and adrenaline she received from making others laugh and be entertained, ran strong through Ann Darrow's arteries. She wanted to juggle, to mock trip, to grab things out of the air.

After about three weeks in Sector 12, the desire became overwhelming. Using Dhuituk as an intermediary, she discreetly asked Sector Chief Gordon Halvorson if she could give one woman stage performances to entertain staff and patients. Gordon agreed, and Ann Darrow enthusiastically displayed her comedic skills and simple magic tricks once daily for the weirdest audience she could've ever conceived of.

In spite of their differing viewpoints on what their species found to be humorous or entertaining, both humans and Martians alike truly seemed to enjoy her pratfalls and card magic. So did the young patients in the level's pediatric ward, and the terminally ill.

Unfortunately, poor Jack didn't have nearly as many options for activities as he convalesced. Although he'd been out for the first six days, and was being given morphine, that classic opioid narcotic, the wounds from his brutal mauling still pained him and his body felt achingly stiff during those several days.

Every day was an agony, each night a nightmare.

And he had them. Christ did he ever have them, just like Ann herself.

During these times he would often cry out for help, or for Ann, or voice the name of some member of the Holy Trinity. Tossing and turning, eyes still shut, his arms would move frantically underneath the bedsheets, as if grappling with a phantom attacker.

Although a combination of inactivity, blood loss, and the energetic demands made by his healing wounds had greatly weakened him, the writer still remained stronger than Ann. The odd sheet or pillow being torn in the frenzy of a nightmare was the result.

During his waking hours, in spite of his wariness and distrust of many of the star-beings, especially Cinrusskin, the crablike, garishly colored Melfans, and any other races that resembled insects, the playwright was as much of a gentleman of a patient as he was on the streets of Manhattan.

Any time someone gave him a bagel with cream cheese and strawberry jam, gave him a bath, changed his bandages, put in a DVD for him, brought him his Maxwell House coffee, took away his Baby Ruth wrapper, or did anything for him at all, he never failed to give a crooked smile and thank them.

In addition to television and talking with Ann, remotely or in person, he amused himself by saying phrases in one of the six different languages he had at least passing knowledge of and listening to the response in English.

Still, he found it frustrating to be lying in a bed all day, every day, confined to the same room, totally vulnerable and humiliated by his helplessness. As a writer, he was used to sitting on a chair or bench or couch for several hours, listening to the clacking of the typewriter keys or the murmur of the pen as he made words appear on virgin paper. He'd even been known to stay in his apartment for several days at a time while working on a new play or novella, only stopping to nap, eat, drink, bathe, or relieve himself.

There was only so much of that sort of inactivity though, that even he could take...especially without something to physically occupy his time. The staff did everything they could to help keep the disorder of cabin fever at bay, and he appreciated that immensely.

Yet a cow pie covered in chocolate isn't a brownie; it is still cow shit, and Jack yearned for the day when he could safely swing his legs over the bed's side and walk, comforting himself with the awareness that day by day, his improvement was perceptible.

Then, about three and a half weeks after Rafiki had teleported them to this kooky, madhouse hospital, his injuries had healed up enough to the point where his sutures could be clipped and extracted, by the dozens. It was done in three different stages.

Due to liberal applications of various topical creams and dermarolling, his scarring proved to be minimal. All the same, there would forever be reminders tattooed on his flesh of how the disturbed leopard tom had nearly made him into cat food.

Five days later, the ecstatic, long-awaited occasion came when Dr. Zhong decided that Jack Driscoll had healed enough to the point where he could attempt walking.

For the first time since being teleported to Sector 12, he turned ninety degrees, felt the carpet brush his bare soles, and then delicately put pressure on the weight-bearing bones of his feet. Using a cane for support, his legs slightly splayed like an hour-old foal's, the writer gingerly staggered and tottered around the room like a man four decades his senior.

Tikini, an Eltan man, closely supervised the procedure, while Ann watched from the live holograph feed, encouraging her partner, every bit as thrilled and delighted and proud as if Jack was her own child learning how to walk. She told him what a strong man he was, how well he was doing, to keep going. As Aaron had predicted, the playwright's good physical health before his mauling went a long way towards speeding up his recovery.

All the same, reaching the point where he could once more walk comfortably, with a stable, deliberate gait, took time. Under a regimen of physical therapy though, and a diet rich in protein, the muscles in his legs and thighs filled out and toughened up nicely after a while, and the clumsy wobbling reverted to his natural elegant, unhurried stride.

And so it was that around five weeks after being sliced to pieces, gutted, and tortured by a mentally disturbed male leopard, losing about a third of his blood, and dying on an alien operating table, Jack Driscoll was finally sound in flesh again, if not mind perhaps.

Now that his surgeons and nurses had done their duty splendidly, Jack and Ann were given rooms in another area of DBDG. To the great joy of both, the rooms were located across the hallway from each other, an arrangement they unsurprisingly took full advantage of.

Many a time, a staff member would see Jack knock on Ann's door, or vice versa, and greet the other with an affectionate "How's my favorite dame?" or "Well, there's my Jack of Hearts!"

At first, Jack could only take short walks through the corridors before needing to rest. Soon enough though, he too began to explore and integrate himself into the fabric of Sector 12 every bit as zealously as his angel already had.

As far back as he could remember, Jack had always been a big fan of science fiction and modern fantasy. Lovecraft, Wells, Jack London, Verne, Haggard, he enjoyed them all. Some of the authors, like Lovecraft, he'd even had the pleasure of meeting in person. To be in a place like Sector 12, full of marvelous secrets and inconceivable wonders to discover, an issue of Weird Tales come to life, was like a dream come true for the playwright.

Like Ann had done before him, Jack couldn't resist wheedling permission out of Head Administrator Sullivan into being allowed to take tours of many of the other levels on the hospital station. Such a high-profile guest's request could hardly be refused in the end, and his wish was granted.

Fittingly, his savior Dr. Zhong served as Jack's guide. Changing into and out of different protective suits, and donning the various belts that maintained or reduced gravitational forces on his body was a little irksome, but the rewards made up for it in spades.

Every time he accompanied Aaron to a new level, and was introduced to the incredible beings that resided and/or were treated there, Jack felt as amazed and excited and wowed as if he'd just seen Santa Claus putting gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve.

On one level, where the air was at least as humid as the Skull Island rainforest, the temperature was 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the atmosphere contained more oxygen and nitrogen, and the gravitational forces were maintained at a level about two and a quarter times that of Earth, Jack met some frightening, truly hideous beings who called themselves "Yautja" in their chittering, growling, purring tongue.

The size of beef cattle, and towering over the six-foot writer by a foot or more, their yellow, tiny pig eyes, sunken and savage, malevolently regarded him over horrible mouths filled with crystal knives of teeth and ringed by four ghastly, folding, insect mandibles. He could tell that although not to the same extent, even Dr. Zhong was frightened by these beings.

One, noting the dreadful scars curling around Jack's arms and legs, asked him in a slurred, demonic voice that horrified Jack to the core, "What...beast...did...that...to you...during your...latest Hunt?"

"It wasn't exactly a hunt," Jack replied, trying not to quake too much. "It was a leopard, and he attacked my girlfriend and I after we'd just escaped from a stampede. I managed to kill him with a simple spear, but he nearly killed me too."

At those words, every Yautja within earshot turned, and gazed at him, their appallingly disgusting visages containing respect and amazement. Their attention just made Jack even more petrified, and he realized that the corners of his mouth had pulled back in what could be taken as a smile, but what he knew was actually a grin of utter terror.

Sitting in a massive chair, its left leg replaced by a prosthetic limb, a huge Yautja, with a knowing, cool, grim amusement, commented, "We frighten you badly, don't we, ooman?"

Trying very hard to master the quaking in his voice, Jack masterfully responded, "Sir, or Mam, if I told you I wasn't scared of you and your kind, I'd be lying and asking for trouble. But if I said that I was nervous, that would be a mistake too-I'd be presenting myself as easy quarry."

The horrible creature cocked its head, considering. Then it laughed, making Jack's spinal column vibrate like a plucked guitar string-a Yautja laugh is something the wise person doesn't provoke.

"That'll do nicely ooman," it stated, tusks flaring briefly in approval. "You're wise not to _ever_ lie to a Yautja-especially a female like me-nor to reveal that particular truth. After all, we hunt those who put themselves into a position to be hunted and can give us a challenge."

"I think this Soft Meat could certainly give _us_ a decent challenge if he bested a great predator with just a spear, as he claims," a bed ridden male, one side of his torso swathed in bandages, chillingly replied, regarding the playwright with the gaze of a fox watching a partridge.

"You know, I think we should leave," an unusually harried-sounding Zhong suggested, turning on his heel and heading to a lift, Jack being all too happy to follow him.

Later, back on DBDG, Aaron told the playwright all about the gruesome, complex relationship between Yautja and humans. Most of the time, the interactions involved the aliens deliberately stalking, killing, and then taking the skulls or skins of armed humans on Earth or human-colonized planets. Sometimes they would also abduct armed and dangerous humans from Earth, and then cut them loose on other planets they controlled to be hunted.

"Almost like a pheasant shoot," a sickened Jack commented.

"Exactly," Zhong nodded.

At the same time though, the Yautja were pragmatic creatures, who weren't above forming covenants with their favorite quarry if they felt they could benefit from it. Thus it was that members of their race who suffered extensive burns, lost limbs, came off worst in a battle with dangerous game, got caught in explosions, or so on, and didn't have access to a med kit or any other alternative would be brought to Sector 12 General Hospital to be treated.

Despite the stomach-churning awareness that these aliens hunted and mutilated their fellows, the humans and members of other species hunted by the Yautja for sport (like the Melfans) would still graciously accept them. Even out here, the Hippocratic Oath remained inviolate. Besides, in hunting only those who could potentially turn the tables, at least the hunters fought semi-fairly.

As Zhong said though, "Giving medical help to a Yautja is like trying to help a tiger. If they're in a pissy mood or feel threatened, you could lose more than just your dignity."

A far less disturbing experience for Jack was when Captain Greg Searls took him and Ann on a slow, spiraling flight in a shuttle around the entire station itself. Floating in space, blinking with all sorts of colored lights, the station looked like a gargantuan, 384 level, cylindrical Christmas tree. All around them, stars shone like candles in a rich, stark blackness. The dazzling beauty of it all damn near brought tears to one's eyes.

Eager to regain the lean muscle and just the weight in general that had melted off his body during his time in the recovery ward, Jack gladly made use of the recreation deck's exercise opportunities. He used the track for jogging and running, played tennis with whatever partners were at hand, lifted weights and did sit-ups in the gym, and played handball, often ending up sore and sweating like a horse from his exertions. It all paid off though.

As a doctor's son, Jack was also intensely interested in the incredible progress medicine had clearly made. From penicillin to laser knives and stem cell transplants, lifesaving innovations were on display everywhere throughout the station. Examining them intently and not being scared to ask questions, he carefully stored away as much information as he could in his head about the simpler tools and procedures, ready to reveal them to 1933 New York when he got sent back for the benefit of mankind.

And that brought up a very pressing, nagging question, one that both New Yorkers asked with increasing frequency as Jack returned to his old self. When _**was**_ Rafiki going to send them back "home," and would he even do it at all?

It was fairly obvious from the get-go that the mandrill wouldn't spring them outta Sector 12 unless and until Jack had sufficiently healed and improved, that much was evident. Still, why hadn't he conjured up one of his kooky mystical portals and dropped by to give a general date for when they could expect to be sent back, to the time and world they knew?

A worried Ann proposed that perhaps Scar had found out or at least suspected that Rafiki knew the truth about Mufasa's murder, and promptly killed or banished the baboon shaman. But Jack pointed out that even if that was so, Mganga would've filled in for him, and already have shown up by now, if only to tell them what happened. No, for reasons known only to him, Rafiki was either waiting for things in the Pridelands to simmer down or biding his time, Jack assured her.

Then, a couple days later and exactly seven weeks after Nduli had savaged Jack and clawed Ann, the wizened mandrill showed himself-and the playwright and the performer would have to make a harsh, harsh choice.

* * *

**The Sasha Seimel Jack refers to was a Latvian hunter living in the Pantanal region of southeastern Brazil at the time, who from 1927 to the end of World War Two, killed close to 300 jaguars at the behest of local cattle ranchers, in addition to assorted mountain lions, anacondas, and caiman. Amazingly, although Sasha killed some of his jaguars and cougars with firearms, he often took them down at close quarters with bow and arrow, bayonets, knives, and a seven foot spear known as a zagaya.**

**Jane Porter of course, is a reference to Tarzan of the Apes.**

**"Yautja" is the name the alien hunters from the movie Predator and its sequels use to refer to themselves in the Alien vs. Predator novels based on the Dark Horse comics, with Prey and Hunter's Planet being my references. Their cameo appearance in this chapter to begin with is of course, a playful nod to Adrien Brody and his impressive performance as Royce, the male lead in the newly released movie Predators. **


	38. Shattered Illusions

**(Walks in and collapses, a quivering wreck.) Well, after nearly five long years, here it is. That pivotal, inevitable chapter we all knew would come sometime. According to my edition of Microsoft Word, this chapter is all of twenty-three pages in length. And no wonder, this chapter was a real struggle to write. Considering how crucial this one would be as a turning point, I pulled out all the stops with this one. Research, reference books, even role-playing with friends, I did it all to make this one special, as compelling and realistic as possible.**

**Most of the information about quantum physics in this chapter is at least fairly accurate. Still, there are some places where I did end up resorting to technobabble for the sake of the story.**

* * *

"Child, magic exists. There are powers and forces and realms beyond the fields you know." _The Invisible Labyrinth_, by Neil Gaiman, 1990.

"["_I don't know _what_ I say. I don't know what I think. All I know is that I wish all three of you had LEFT ME THE FUCK ALONE!"_] Ralph Roberts raised his head toward the root-riddled ceiling of Atropos's den and screamed." _Insomnia_, by Stephen King, 1994.

"I tell you what _I _believe-shit happens!" _Predator 2_, 1990.

"A paradox is not a conflict within reality. It is a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality should be like." Richard Feynman.

"To the moon, Alice!" Ralph Kramden, The Honeymooners.

His nerves taut, so acutely _aware_ of the present moment, Jack Driscoll fiercely gripped the hilt of his weapon, eyes and attention locked on his armored opponent, totally ignoring the mingled shouts of the excited crowd. Like the writer, the Roman gladiator held a two and a half foot sword known as a spatha in his right hand, the slicing blade pointing up and forward at about a 50 degree angle. On his left arm was a rectangular shield, held in place by leather straps.

"My name is Priscus," the gladiator gruffly addressed Jack. "Prepare to die under my sword."

"Heh, we'll see about that pal," Jack defiantly shot back, focused and confident as the sunlight bathed both men in harsh gold.

Then, bringing his sword backward, Priscus chopped at the playwright's chest. Swiftly, Jack blocked the blow with his own spatha.

There was a fearsome, grating pressure transmitted up the weapon and into Jack's arm as he forced Priscus's sword back and down.

Pulling free, the writer flung his shield in front of his abdomen as Priscus stabbed with his sword, preventing him from being impaled through the intestines.

Now Jack lunged for the gladiator's throat with the point of his spatha. But Priscus was ready, and at the last instant, deflected the blow with the flat of his own blade.

It was a wild, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants duel, where neither combatant could afford to slacken for a moment. Jack could feel the jarring impact as Priscus' blade clanged against his or smashed into his wooden shield.

Sometimes both men would part briefly, sweating and breathing hard as they sized each other up for a new weakness, an advantage to exploit-and then go at it hammer and tongs once more.

All the while, a desperate Jack Driscoll, often shocked by the tenacity and viciousness of the gladiator's attack, trying his utmost to keep that blade from connecting, would exclaim, "Oh Christ, Oh Christ! Nooo! Ahhhh! Jesus! Don't you try that with me pal! Hah, too slow Roman! Jesus! Didn't feel good, did it?"

These oaths and blusters made Ann laugh so hard her eyes nearly watered, but Jack steadfastly ignored her as his gaze remained glued to the crimson bar on the right side of the screen, sinking downward in a jerk every time the computer-generated gladiator's sword was able to get past the defenses of the playwright's first-person, warrior alter ego, represented by only a pair of arms extending into space on the screen.

With each slash or stab that tasted nonexistent flesh, the screen would turn rose for a second or two, Jack's avatar would give a muffled, grunting cry of pain, and yes, the life bar would decrease by another notch. At the same time though, Jack gladly gave as well as he got, an increasing number of PG-13 wounds appearing on Priscus' body as the playwright made swinging, chopping, jabbing motions with the controller he clutched in his right hand, and raised his left arm, a second controller strapped to his forearm acting as a stand in for a Roman shield.

An increasing desperation took hold as Jack watched both life bars drop in too-fast fits. Would he finally be able to beat this level of _Ultimate Warrior 7_ on Wii Third Millennium? Who would go empty first?

Now both bars were down to the wire. Then, with one good, final jab, giving it everything he had, Jack managed to impale Priscus deep in the chest with the spatha.

At that, the screen froze. A message appeared in orange, blinking letters, proclaiming, "TITUS WINS!" as the screen drew back to reveal and then pan around Jack's victorious game character, pulling the discreetly blood-tinged sword back and raising it to the sky while Priscus wearily slumped backward and down, dying.

As the fallen gladiator crashed to the ground on his back, dust bursting into the air from the impact, Jack's alter ego bellowed in triumph as the crowd shrieked all around him in excitement and ecstasy.

"Yeah!" Jack himself cheered. "Hah-hah! Boy did I fix him good that time!" he said smugly, turning to a giggling Ann.

"A nice performance!" she agreed. "I think you're finally beginning to get the hang of that level."

"Yep," Jack nodded as he turned back to the screen. "Cro-Magnon, Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite, Greek, Persian, and now Roman, I've gotten pretty good at licking them all in this arena, if I may say so. The Viking is up next though," he added, tone darkening as he clicked on a broadsword for his weapon, "and I've never gone up against that nasty Norseman yet. Let's hope I know what I'm doing," he muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his right hand.

Both New Yorkers were currently in Jack's new room on DGDB. Now that they both were no longer in need of any medical attention, Ann and Jack had been moved to a pair of suites adjacent to each other to free up their hospital rooms.

Like any good hotel room, it had all sorts of excellent amenities. In Jack's, there were period-appropriate clothes and shoes in the dresser and closet. Vests, trousers, singlets and boxer shorts, swim trunks for the rec deck's pool, a bathrobe, and Polaroid sunglasses. In his bathroom, there was a safety razor and shaving cream (although, for some odd reason, he hadn't been able to find the former over the past two days), Bay Rhum cologne and deodorant soap.

For the first time in over three months, the writer had a decent, proper bed to sleep in, with a pillow to accept and support his head, and cool, soft blankets to slide under. Perhaps even better, he often chastely shared it with Ann, blissfully feeling the warmth of her body in his arms and against his scarred chest as their ribs expanded in rhythm, smelling the mixture of scents rising from her skin and sleek sleeping robe.

And every time they decided to fall asleep together, the playwright and the stage actress would engage in the same tender kissing ritual they'd done the night before Scar betrayed everyone. Yes, it was a wonderful thing, sharing one's bed with a woman.

As for the former vaudeville girl, her room too, had been thoughtfully furnished by the staff. Her bathroom contained all sorts of things from her time period for a member of the high-maintenance sex; a Mason Pearson brush, Frownies and Wrinkies, which were little pads that relaxed the facial muscles and got rid of lines, a metal-toothed comb, eyelash curlers, Vaseline, eyeliner, rouge, and even Jungle Gardenia perfume.

In her closet were various dresses, half slips, full slips, tap pants, skirts, blouses, sleeping robes, bras, sweaters, form-fitting cotton swimwear, and heeled shoes.

Right now, the actress was barefoot, dressed in a simple button-up teal blue blouse and pleated charcoal skirt, sitting on the end of Jack's bed as she watched him struggle through levels of Ultimate Warrior 7. Instead of being clad in the armor of his video game avatar, the playwright only had on a pair of brown Spaulding track shorts and a singlet, staying cool and limber as he parried and stabbed with the controller.

Looking in at that moment, a casual observer might've assumed that both Ann and Jack were as happy and content as one could possibly be, delighting in being alive, in each other's company, in the extraordinary wonders of Sector 12 Hospital, in the near-magical technology they got to experience and use on a daily basis, in the luxuries bestowed on them.

And they would be very wrong.

Certainly, after repeatedly coming so close to dying a violent, horrific death, so far from home with no one to lay their body to rest, both Jack and Ann were understandably filled with a newfound appreciation and zest for life, adopting an attitude of enjoying every moment to the fullest.

Then too, over the past seven weeks, both the playwright and his dame had grown ever closer and more devoted to each other, to the point where they were almost sharing blood. (Jack figured that since she'd already had her fingers crammed _inside_ his belly to keep his entrails from spilling out, any other physical gesture short of sex fell pretty flat in comparison as far as intimacy went.)

And yet, vexingly, Jack still couldn't open that final gate. He still wouldn't smash that horizontal pane of glass which would allow Ann Darrow to fall into him at long last by uttering those three magic words, the phrase that proclaimed, "You have my soul and my heart forever. Will you take mine?"

It wasn't made any easier by the knowledge that Jack received from Ann through his private radio antenna, an uncomfortable, unspoken feeling that she wasn't all that pleased with him for running out on poor Simba and leaving the helpless cub to Scar or Nduli's tender mercies. It was silly of course. That leopard had savaged him to within an inch of his life, and Jack shuddered to think of what Scar could've done to them.

Still, it seemed to change the dynamic just a little, and now Jack was worried that if he told Ann so soon after, she'd snap back, "Well, if you love me _so much_, why didn't you at least let me **try** to help Simba, or get yourself down there with me!" or something to that effect.

It would be so much easier if Ann simply broke the barrier herself, and all he'd have to do was automatically respond back. Then, having told her once, it would become far less difficult to say it later on.

But Jack knew that was very unlikely to happen. As a proper woman, Ann had been conditioned to allow the stronger sex to take the initiative in many areas of life, including matters of romance.

The playwright didn't doubt that it irritated and disappointed her. It sure as hell irritated him. He'd managed to convince himself though, that it didn't really matter in the end. Surely, all his actions from the moment he began to regard her as more than just an acquaintance and fellow traveler made the depth of his love and loyalty and devotion abundantly clear?

After all, it had taken his middle brother an amazing seven months to admit out loud to Veronica that _he_ loved her. What was a mere ten weeks? It would come past his lips any day now.

Infinitely more of a burden though, was the profound feeling of impatience and complete isolation that rasped at their psyches, the undercurrent of awareness that they were very much two fish out of water.

Yes, everything was a spectacular, wondrous novelty-certainly, these "video games" had Snakes and Ladders or Parcheesi beat to kingdom come as far as Jack was concerned, for one thing. And the staff treated them both like visiting royalty, trying their best to meet every physical, psychological, and emotional need, up to the point where they'd made their rooms like little slices of 1933 New York.

But that was the problem. It **wasn't** 1933 New York, but 2267 A. D. (although on a practical level, that date meant little or nothing to them) in a cylindrical, mammoth hospital station floating in the airless, freezing vacuum of space between two galaxies, inhabiting an entirely separate _universe_, for cripes sake. In the truest sense of the words, they were out of time, and out of space.

It wasn't that Jack and Ann were ungrateful. They truly appreciated the efforts the good-hearted aliens and humans around them made towards catering to their every whim and showing them a great time. This was especially true for Ann, who'd lived such a life of privation and struggle. Indeed, for the first time in at least a decade, she was beginning to actually get a bit of fat on her frame.

All the same though, you can take a wild-caught macaw and stick it in a nice big aviary. You can outfit the place with all sorts of perches and live plants; you can give it choice nuts and fruit, give it a fellow macaw for company, and give it plenty of attention or nice treats. But that will never and _can_ never change the awful fact that that bird can no longer fly free over the rainforest, that it is forever separated from its flock, from the pleasures of wild fruit, from its very _world_.

So it was with Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow. Having each other, and being aware that where there was life, there was hope, made the experience more bearable. So did the company of other human beings.

But Jack deeply missed his father, his mother, his brothers and sister. He missed his friends, the Stork Club, the El Morocco, the New York Public Library, his apartment, his theater, his typewriter, his fellow members of the drama and acting community, the diners and skyscrapers.

Ann, sadly enough, had much less to pine for. Yet she too, missed the scent of coal smoke, the fellas and women who shared her rooming house, Central Park, the East River, the vendors, the lights and the canyons of steel and concrete. Heck, she almost even missed Holden Moore, her unforgiving, stocky Irish landlord who had a face like a hateful St. Bernard.

Like no other human beings in history, they could understand the paralyzing helplessness, the anguish, the maddening, all-encompassing weight of soul-destroying despair and terror that seized H.G. Wells' Time Traveler when he woke to find his Time Machine taken away by the Morlocks all too well. And unless or until Rafiki showed up, there was absolutely nothing they could do about these circumstances.

Life just had to go on though, and they both put on a happy face.

As Jack got ready to press the START button that would launch him into virtual battle with the Viking warrior, dressed in a sheet metal helmet and chain mail, he told Ann, "Say, after I'm done playing this level a few times, would you like to go have dinner with me in the cafeteria? I've heard they'll be serving buffalo wings for us humans."

"Gladly," Ann happily replied. "I _love _buffalo wings."

"It's funny," Jack commented, "I've had Frank's Red Hot Sauce on all sorts of things, but it never occurred to me to coat chicken parts with it like that Teressa dame in our future will. I'm gonna have to introduce it to New York a little early."

"Not to mention chocolate chip cookies," Ann fondly added as Jack proceeded to clash with the Norseman.

The Viking's coat of mail meant that only his shoulders, neck, and face served as practical targets. Mr. Kvedvulf's legs and feet were also unprotected, but the playwright knew better then to put his head into the perfect position for the Viking to lop it off.

Abruptly, there was a knock at the door. "Mr. Driscoll? Miss Darrow? Are you both in there?"

Damn it. Putting the game on pause and mildly irritated by having to do so, Jack replied, "Yeah, we are. Who's there?"

"Nurse Hamilton," the female voice went. Ah, Nurse Cindy Hamilton. One of the folks who'd helped save his life in the operating room. Well, she was welcome in anytime. "May I come in? I've brought someone else to see you too."

"Come in," Jack said as he put down both controllers.

Opening the door, made from the beautiful polished turquoise wood of the _Phanwee_ tree from the Orglian's home planet, Cindy walked in, her sandy blond hair held in a ponytail, dressed in a spearmint green uniform. Behind her came a hunched, gnarled figure, holding a staff in his left hand with three spheres that softly rattled and clicked with each step, regarding them with wise yellow eyes that peered out of a flamboyantly colored face.

Jack's eyes widened in his sockets, and his face lit up as a thrill of recognition seized him.

Ann broke off from saying, "How you doing Cin...," and a similar expression of joyful disbelief painted itself over her soft features.

"Rafiki!" Ann shouted, springing to her feet. It was a cry of thankfulness, of delight, of amazement, of the sheer joy one feels when a promise is kept, of utter relief at the certainty that at long last, they would once more be returned to all they knew and loved and understood.

Softly chuckling, the old mandrill was more than happy to accept her bended-knee embrace, gourds clacking as they hugged, Ann telling him, "Oh, Rafiki, am I ever gay to see you!"

Showing a bit more restraint, Jack nonetheless wasted no time in striding over to the monkey shaman as Ann stepped back and took a leathery, powerful hand in one of his own, shaking it as he enthusiastically told him, "Great to see you old boy! We were just tearing our hair out wondering if you'd ever come back," he half-jokingly quipped.

"Eh, old Rafiki is like a tsetse fly or a curious child full of questions," the baboon grinned. "He always comes back! How hav' bot' ud you been getting on here at Sector 12?" he cordially asked.

"Well, when not recovering from being torn to ribbons by a certain evil leopard, we've just been having good clean fun, spending time together, or silently contemplating the universe," Ann good-naturedly smiled, playfully shrugging her trim shoulders.

"I've had plenty of time for that last activity while lying in my hospital bed, that's for sure," Jack wryly put in. "But in all frankness here, I just have to tell you, thank you so much Rafiki, for finding and helping us. You have my thanks more than I can ever fully express."

"Oh, I just sent you to a place where you could be helped Mr. Driscoll," the mandrill downplayed, giving a modest smile. "Cindy and her fellow doctors were de ones who get de credit for _really_ saving your life."

"I know, but you still played quite a big role in keeping my breath in my body, and I owe it to you fella," Jack fervently replied, squatting to hug the witch doctor himself now in gratitude, feeling the staff lightly pressing against his back. "It's not all that fancy, but from the bottom of my heart and Ann's, again, thanks."

"You are dery welcome," Rafiki grandly told the writer.

"And I also want to apologize about the way I acted toward you when you showed up," Jack added, standing back up and giving uncertain looks at the beige carpet. "Just keep in mind that I was in awful pain, in shock, terrified by the fact that I was dy-"

"Dere is not'ing to be sorry about Mr. Driscoll," Rafiki assured him. "Why, if old Rafiki had a custard apple for ed'ry time a wounded creature behaved dat way towards him, I would be fat as a hippo!" he lightly cackled.

Changing the subject as his yellow-brown eyes thoughtfully shifted between both survivors, he ventured matter-of-factly, "I bet both ud you are more dan ready to lead dis place and return to your proper home, aren't you?"

"You bet we are!" Ann passionately replied.

"Like you wouldn't believe," Jack said, slowly shaking his head for emphasis.

"Den follow me," Rafiki asked, turning and gesturing towards the door with a flip of his free hand. "We are going to go to anot'er room to do de teleportation spell dough."

Overjoyed as he was, Jack couldn't help but give in to a powerful urge to chuckle as Ann looked at him and broke out laughing as well. There had been quite a few times in the recent past when the realization of how absolutely _**insane**_ their lives had become hit them with such force that laughing was really all they could do. A talking, mystical, all-knowing baboon witch doctor from another universe was about to help them take leave of a deep-space hospital in a _second _alternate universe staffed by humans and aliens, by forming a magical portal that would presumably bring them back to 1933 New York. He deeply hoped it would be New York.

Regaining her composure, Ann broke in, "Rafiki, could you first give me a few minutes to go into my room and change into warmer clothing? Jack as well, cause it'll still be pretty cold in New York, and we'll need some wool on us."

"Dat is already taken care of, Miss Darrow," Rafiki neutrally assured. "Dere is a suitable change of clot'ing for each of you in de room where we are heading."

"Good to hear," Ann said. "I just hope it's fashionable!" she jokingly added.

"I like your foresight," the impressed writer commented.

"Let's move on now," Cindy said simply, turning and heading out.

Aware that this was probably the only chance he'd have, the writer asked as he accompanied the baboon to the door, "Before you send us back Rafiki, there are a few questions Ann and I are absolutely dying to know, like why did-"

"Patience, Mr. Driscoll," the old shaman advised, holding up his hand. "When we get to where we must be, I shall make everyting clear-and dat is not far."

Accepting this, Jack nodded, and fell into step with Ann, both sweethearts holding hands as they walked down the hall behind Rafiki and Cindy. The mandrill's gait was steady and casual, his wrinkled Technicolor face directed firmly ahead.

Cindy though, seemed less confident in her demeanor for some reason. Several times Jack noticed her glancing over her shoulder at them, with what looked to be a troubled expression in her blue eyes.

Turning to Ann, Jack inquired, "When Rafiki sent us, well..._here_, from the baobab tree-it didn't hurt or do anything uncomfortable to you, did it?"

Ann's flaxen curls flopped as she shook her head. "Nope, no more than it did when we ended up in the elephant graveyard. It was crazy and scary as hell, but we've learnt to deal with those things in spades by now."

"Hah, that's for sure," Jack grunted. "Personally, I'm very much looking forward to never, _ever_ having to be involved with the outlandish or fearing for our lives again." No more battles, no more strung-out nerves, no more paranoid worrying that every shadow or clump of brush or large plant concealed some monster with designs on killing him or Ann, no more weapons, no more memories to generate even more nightmares. Relief was too weak a word for the concept.

"Oh goodness, yes," Ann sighed in earnest. "Looks like we'll be back in New York presently however."

"Back where we belong. Don't know about you, but the first thing _I'm_ going to do when we get zapped back is take a long, hot shower, _then_ gorge myself on corned beef sandwiches and clam chowder at Max's Diner, and then never go any place outside the tri-state area again in my whole goddamned life," the playwright proclaimed.

"Me neither," Ann agreed with a firm nod.

Actually, Jack secretly knew that there would be heaps more to it than that. Having been essentially kidnapped and conscripted into Carl's foolish little adventure, no one could possibly know where he'd suddenly gone off to. No doubt the question of where he'd gotten off to or what had become of him spread all over town rather rapidly. Happily though, he'd paid the monthly rent for his apartment only four days before.

And later in the voyage, his so-called pal allowed him to dictate a few carefully worded messages to the radio operator, telling his parents in Philadelphia that he was doing okay, was "taking advantage of an unprecedented opportunity to expand both my horizons and career," that they were all in his thoughts, and was just having a grand time with a grand adventure before him. What an utter fish story.

But since the last telegraphed message, Jack hadn't contacted the outside world for about a week before the Venture ran aground on Skull Island, and had now been here for at least seven. Almost certainly, he'd been declared legally dead by now, his apartment put up for sale, and his personal possessions auctioned off or just sold.

Recovering even half of them was going to be a logistical nightmare, and with the way the economy was where they hailed from, Jack was not optimistic that the new owners would so easily want to part with such fairly classy items.

First though, he would go to the nearest police station and present himself as alive and well. Then, after some of the hoo-hah died down, he would use their phone to call his parents and his brothers, not only to remedy their fears, but to use the familial connection for a degree of support while he patched his life in the city back together.

And then there would be the legal battles. Jack pos-I-tive-ly _despised _having to get mixed up with the foot-dragging court system any more than he could help, but it was a necessary evil in this case. For one thing, he _was_ going to sue Carl Denham six ways till Sun-.

His train of thought was derailed by Rafiki saying, "Look alive Mr. Driscoll! We're almost dere."

Snapping to attention, Jack registered that their stroll down corridors and around a few corners was leading them to a large swinging wooden door, set in the right side of the hallway. Now Cindy gave them another backwards glance, eyes almost containing...pity? Remorse?

The room was essentially a simple cube around 50 square feet in size, floored with linoleum the color of curdled milk. There were countertops along the walls on the left and right side, with locked glass-fronted cabinets above, containing a forbidding looking collection of syringes, IV tubing, needles, and vials of drugs. At the back was a door indicating a men's bathroom, and another indicating a women's. Jack's immediate impression was that this room wasn't so much a surgery bay or operating theater as a general storage area, and that the bathrooms were probably meant to be accessed from both this room and an adjacent hallway.

What really seized his attention though, (and Ann's), were the contents of the room. There was a stand-alone holovision projector. There were also two wicker chairs, each with a set of clothing draped over them.

On the right chair were the ragged pink slip and tap pants Ann had been wearing when the savages had absconded with her. On the left were the playwright's cotton undershirt, button-up silk shirt, his boxers, trousers, leather belt, socks, and rather malformed-looking dress shoes. The slashes in them from Nduli's claws and teeth had been repaired masterfully, and all the articles had been washed as well. The tears and tatters their clothing had sported _before _the cat's attack though, had not been repaired at all.

Huh? Was this a gift? A joke or prank of some sort? What was going on?

Totally baffled, Jack felt his eyelids crinkle in puzzlement as he turned to look at Rafiki, standing off to the right. The shaman and Cindy both looked like they hated being alive as his gaze touched them.

Then, like an arrow from an assassin's bow, the devastating, terrible understanding pierced Jack Driscoll as he put two and two together.

They weren't being sent back to New York City. They were both being **sent back to Skull Island!**

"No, no, you're kidding me, you're joking, you're _joking!_" Jack groaned, as Ann, also having come to the same terrible epiphany, cried, "God no! You can't be serious!" Her expressive cerulean eyes, wide with terror and understanding, looked like those of a doe in a leg snare.

A rotten, nauseating feeling roiled up in the playwright's stomach as something within him rocketed up to pound into his Adam's apple and then came plummeting down to burst in his entrails like an artillery shell, and he knew a few moments of wooziness where the strength went out of his legs, threatening to send him tumbling to the floor...or at least retch all over it.

Disbelief and dread gave way to a wild rage that exploded in his mind like a firecracker, like the sensation of a punch to the head. Right now, he _deeply_ wanted to sock someone in the head.

"_You **lying** son of a bitch!_" Jack roared, whirling to face Rafiki. "_You said we were both **going back to New York!**_**"**

Ann's usual sunshiny features wore an expression of dismay and disgust, her voice a soft growl as she looked from Cindy to Rafiki, saying, "I knew it. I _knew_ it! I knew deep down something was going on, but I couldn't bring myself to look at it head-on or dig for the truth, either because I was way more worried about Jack or was just too damn scared. And I was right to be scared, wasn't I?"

"Yeah," Jack nodded heatedly, glaring at Rafiki, "looks like you were right."

"I never said you were going right back to New York," the mandrill replied, slightly puzzled. "You simply assumed that on your part."

"But you just said a few minutes ago that we were going back to our proper home!" Jack yelled. "What's the big idea?" he demanded, his being just glowing with outrage. He noticed that Cindy, intimidated by his fury, automatically took two slow steps backward at that instant. It made the playwright all the more hot under the collar.

This was all planned out. Rafiki had had Cindy, a woman, accompany him here because he knew that if a man was here-Zhong or Cortez, for example-Jack would likely end up attempting to clean the floor with them for such treachery. Being an honorable and gallant man though, he could never bring himself to strike a dame, and he knew that the shaman knew it as well.

"Dat is precisely what I meant," Rafiki said. "You must be returned to de time, place, and position dat both ud you were in when I accidently teleported you to de Pridelands."

"Um buddy," Jack sneered, "the last time we had dealings with Skull Island was a whole, oh I don't know, seven and a half weeks ago, with Ann and I being launched into space while I clung to some living gargoyle's wing claw for dear life. I'd say it's pretty difficult at best to get back to square one under those circumstances."

"And we'd also be trapped there, with no hope of rescue," Ann fervently added, voice becoming strained. "I guarantee you both, all the survivors on the Venture gave us up for dead and got outta there a long time ago. They're probably back in New York already, for that matter-or at least not more than a couple days away from docking there."

"Ah, but dat is where de current state of science in your period of history hinders your knowledge about de nature of time." Rafiki informed them. "First ud all, do you know what a Mobius strip is?"

A steamed Jack had enough control to nod, more than a little confounded by the idea that a baboon was familiar with such a thing.

"I've never heard of one, unfortunately," Ann shrugged.

"A Mobius strip," Jack explained to her, swallowing his ire for the moment, "is basically the shape you get if you give a strip of paper a half-twist, than join the ends together to make a loop. It's an interesting little figure. For one thing, if you draw a line down the strip from the seam, it will meet back at the seam, but at the other side of the paper, without ever crossing an edge."

"I see," Ann nodded.

"And correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Mystic Baboon," Jack said as he turned back to Rafiki, voice still icy, "but it sounds like you intend to pull a similar maneuver with us in time and space."

"Dat is correct," Rafiki confirmed. "Now, try to t'ink of all reality, all existence, as like a honeycomb, where e'drey cell in de comb is a single universe, one part of a much greater multiverse. You and Ann live in one of these cells, while I live in another, and dis hospital station is in yet another."

"Okay," Jack said doubtfully.

"Now ordinarily," the shaman continued, "one could no more penetrate de barrier between two universes dan a bee grub could get through de wax wall of its cell."

Realization dawning on her rose face, Ann put in, "But if you used really powerful magic..."

"Yes," Rafiki nodded, smiling. "Or went through a black hole-but de forces involved in dat would crush and kill you. Magic can be controlled far more easily."

"Say, what's a black hole?" Jack asked, puzzled. "I assume it's some kinda astronomical phenomenon from the context, but exactly what..." He shrugged.

"A black hole," Cindy explained, "is sort of like a pit in space from which nothing, even light, can escape, because the gravity is so amazingly intense. They're caused from the deformation of space-time by an ultra-compact mass, namely a dead star which collapsed on itself and had a mass at least 3.5 times greater than that of the Earth's sun, if I remember my courses correctly."

As a member of the intelligentsia and a devout reader of _Scientific American_, Jack understood immediately what Cindy's words meant, and their ramifications.

"I'll be damned," he gasped in amazement, grinning. "Just like Chandrasekhar calculated from Einstein's general relativity theory! Except the mass calculation is apparently off by a factor of oh, 150 percent," he thoughtfully drawled to himself as he looked up at an angle, tapping the tips of his fingers together.

Despite everything else, the writer was excited and thrilled. Yet one more piece of astonishing scientific knowledge he'd stumbled across in this futuristic world to share back in New York!

_If we get back to the Venture alive that is, _a grim, terrified part of him cut in.

Hopelessly bemused, Ann's gaze darted between her boyfriend and Cindy. "How in goodness can there be a pit in space?" she asked skeptically. "You must be pulling my leg," she told Cindy.

"No," Jack sincerely replied, shaking his head, "she isn't."

"Really?" Ann said, eyes slightly widening. "But I thought space is like the air in this room, something with three dimensions that anyone or anything can move freely within. And what is space-time?"

"Well, yes and no," Jack replied, extending his left hand and casually flipping it back and forth. "In the traditional sense, yeah, space is three-dimensional. But if you add time as a fourth dimension, and imagine each of the dimensions as kind of merging into one another, they combine to produce space-time. It's like a sheet."

"Now, what that has to do with this black hole stuff Cindy's talking about is that the mass of every heavenly body affects space-time by producing an impression in it from its gravity, like your body weight forms a hollow in your mattress when you lie down. Most of the time, these depressions in space-time are like bowls or platters. But if the force of gravity is powerful enough, it will actually punch right through space-time itself to form a 'black hole.' At least, that's the way I understand it," he ended.

"That's interesting enough," Ann said as she turned to Rafiki, "but it doesn't explain why you're so set on returning us to that awful island. Why can't you just send us back to New York or some other place that's a lot less dangerous?" she pleaded.

"I wish I could," Rafiki sighed regretfully. "But ed'ryting must be exactly de way it was when-"

Again a new flare of fury at such a brutally unfair injustice, exploding in his mind like a spark in old logging slash.

"Ya know, I don't give a damn about the way things need to be!" Jack sharply yelled, starling both women. "What I care about is _US!_ Me and Ann!"

"You honestly want to send us back there? Back to where we've each already nearly died at _least_ six times? Back to where we endured more pain and terror and stress and saw more horrors in two days than most people will in an entire lifetime?" Jack ranted, bull-throated. "That island is _covered_ with horrors you can't even conceive of Rafiki! Just **knowing **a place like that exists scares me to death!" he shuddered in primal horror, voice becoming a momentary screech.

"And if I sound both spitting mad and scared out of my mind by any chance, you're damn right I am! I'm scared of and scarred by what almost happened to us. I'm scared of and angry about how the whole experience did things to Ann and I, forever changed who we are, in ways we didn't want or ask to be changed. I'm scared of the huge flesh-eating crickets the size of wildcats with jaws like shears. I'm scared of the crocodile-bird dinosaurs that have mouths like bear traps and claws like whetted knives. I'm scared of the damn fish that are as long as trolleys and look like an eel from Hell's aquarium. I'm scared of the Triceratops-type dinosaurs. Most of all, I'm scared witless of _**him**_, the ape."

He thought he heard Ann whisper insistently to herself, in the tone of one taking a secret vow, "It's _Kong_," but the writer was much too focused on other things to be certain or care.

"Yes, him," Jack went on darkly as his gaze locked with Rafiki's. "Kong. He's the huge gorilla that made off with Ann and made me and a lot of other fellas have to go to all that trouble to get her back, you see. You know what a gorilla is, don't you buddy?" he hotly addressed the shaman. He felt like he was strangling on sheer rage, like his brain was a merry-go-round spinning out of control.

"Yes, I do."

"Well, this one has fangs as long and thick as my calf muscle, and fists the size of your average boulder. Even better, he evidently thinks every bit as highly of Ann as I do, and is extremely protective/possessive of her," he said.

"And you'd better believe it," Ann carefully, timorously chimed in, giving her hero uncertain, cautious glances, obviously jittery about offending him by mentioning the ape. "Why, he took on and killed three vicious dinosaurs 60 times Jack's size just to save me!"

Giving his darling, _his_ angel, a sidelong glance that he hoped wasn't too obtrusive, it suddenly dawned on him that she wasn't so much scared for her own safety as for his. In those expressive eyes he saw a terrible knowledge consuming her, the knowledge that whatever Kong meant to her personally, whatever their bond, he only meant death for Jack.

"I know dat," the mandrill said, sorrow and frustration wrinkling his painted facial folds, "and I am truly sorry for what I am asking both ud you to do. But you must go back home to the island, _and_ at de exact same moment dat I accidently transported you to de Pridelands."

That got the attention of both New Yorkers like a yank on a bull's brass nose ring. Ann had already heard the revelation from the shaman in Mganga's greenheart tree of course, and Jack had found out from her in turn while recovering. But it was still astonishing to hear the facts straight from the horse's mouth so to speak, of how they'd arrived in such a surreal new realm.

"You knew that? But how? Even more amazing, you truly _were_ responsible for teleporting us over there," Jack marveled. "But how did that happen, for cripes sake? How _could_ that happen? Were you saying some chant to the sun and then garbled a verse, something like that?" he asked, making Ann involuntarily giggle.

Rafiki gave a wild, completely unoffended, cackle too, before saying, "No, not like dat. What happened," he said, taking on an expression of embarrassment and contrition, glancing at the tops of his feet as he gave a chagrined smile, "is dat I was practicing what we witch doctors call a 'looking glass' spell."

"Shades of Lewis Carroll," Ann muttered.

"In a looking glass spell," Rafiki went on, "a shaman takes a vessel, in my case a tortoise shell, fills it wit' a little water, some pebbles of rose quartz, and some magical powders. After saying de correct incantations, de water then becomes a sort of one-way tunnel de shaman can use to watch an event tru' space and time. Depending on de strength of de spell, and de wishes of de shaman, de event de spell reveals may be just a few miles away...or it may be in an entirely different universe, as in your case. And yes, de information gained by looking into dese portals is a huge reason why I and o'ter witch doctors have such encyclopedic knowledge of t'ings you wouldn't expect us to know. Dat and deep meditation," he added with a toothy grin.

"That explains quite a lot of questions already, to put it very mildly," Ann said in awed understanding.

"So it's almost like using a two-way mirror," Jack surmised. "You can passively watch one way, but what you're watching can't see or hear you."

"But how does the magic spell settle on an event to show you exactly?" Ann asked. "Is it just random chance?"

"Yes and no," the mandrill replied. "I know dis may be hard to understand, but as a rule, de magic orients itself towards something especially interesting-d'ough it contains a degree of chance as well. And again, it also depends on 'how far' de shaman wants it to go through space and time."

"We witch doctors," Rafiki continued, "are most concerned with de welfare and events of de kingdom we serve. Still, sometimes dere are o'ter events, upheavals, turning points, struggles dat catch de spell's eye, as it were."

"And we, or at least what happened when the Venture landed, were one of them," Ann guessed.

"Correct you are Miss Darrow," he said, giving a slow, smiling nod. "Why, just de dery fact dat you were part of de dery first group ot white men to officially discover and set foot on Skull Island was enough reason in itself for de spell to take notice. You were and are a pivot point, a new beginning dat it found _dery_ interesting."

"It got a lot _more_ interesting after landfall, to say the least," Jack muttered bitterly.

The mandrill's Mona Lisa smile then shifted into a glum, reluctant look, the look of a man about to divulge a secret that he knows will not only deeply upset others, but cost him dearly.

"De spell took at around de time Englehorn was battling for control of de steamer. T'ru de water in de tortoise shell, I viewed your separate ordeals and near misses with death in dat island's jungles, or at least a condensed version of it. So, I...I know what happened to you, and I am dery sorry Mr. Driscoll and Miss Darrow."

There was a shocked, quivering silence as the truth sunk in, and both New Yorkers goggled at the witch doctor. Ann's complexion, already quite fair, seemed to drain of color like an inverted pitcher.

"Good heavens. So you...you did see," she squeaked. "All of it!"

Standing fully erect, his lanky form vibrating and soul filled with disbelief and scandal and even a sort of curious embarrassment, Jack coolly asked, in a husky, fierce whisper, "You'd damn well better be kidding me. You really saw the whole awful business? All those horrors? _Everything?_" He could feel his cheeks burning, his eyes narrowing with fury and lividness and mortification in a reaction that was the opposite of Ann's.

"Yes, I saw," Rafiki replied, his eyes intent and brooding all at once. "I saw what no human being e'der deserved to go t'ru, your friends and companions from de ship die in ways dat no human being deserves to die. I saw and heard your terror and despair, horrors dat e'den made old Rafiki feel sick come rushing out at you, grit my teeth as I wondered if dis time, your luck would run out, and de two of you would ne'der reunite again. So yes, I saw, and I heard, and in some ways e'den felt, Jack and Ann. E'dryting."

For a few moments in time, the playwright just stood there, fuming. It would not have surprised him in the least if he'd realized that there was an actual thread of steam rising from his head.

_If I had a gun, I'd blow your ugly monkey face to bits, you evil son of a bitch,_ he silently snarled.

"Why didn't you do anything?" both New Yorkers yelled in tandem, voices overflowing with accusation and horror.

Apparently not daring or willing to say anything at the moment, the baboon was the very definition of quiet observer. _Just like you probably looked while you watched me desperately try to avoid getting squashed by the Brontosaurs, with an Aquilasuchus snapping at my head for good measure_, Jack though icily. Once more, that sensation of suffocating on anger, like he'd swallowed boiling olive oil.

"Why? Why didn't you a damn thing to help us?" Ann screeched, her eyes starting to water miserably.

"_ANWSER HER YOU FILTHY APE_! _**WHY DIDN'T YOU DO ANYTHING!**_" Jack roared. "_You saw, you __knew__, and yet you didn't lift a finger! Why! WHY! WHY DIDN'T YOU DO A SINGLE THING __**TO PROTECT US! TO PROTECT ANN!**_"

"_WHY didn't you help us!_" Ann gasped and sobbed, crumpling to the floor. "Are you _that _sadistic? Did you enjoy watching us suffer? Watching good people die? I hope you got your money's worth!"

Her tears and distress made Jack all the more angry, and he stalked toward the unfeeling baboon, who shied and raised his staff in the air.

"I wouldn't come any closer if I was you Mr. Driscoll," Cindy interjected wholeheartedly. "I think he knows how to use it."

The writer had just enough sense to stop in his tracks and turn to look at her. A graphic, sickly appealing little film briefly played on the movie screen of his mind, of seizing the traitorous nurse by the neck and shaking her, pounding her against the cupboards and counters until her neck snapped-but how could he do that to an unarmed woman? Especially to one who'd helped keep his heartbeat going?

No, Ann was the priority. His anguished Venus needed him right now, at her side and not trying to tear these unfeeling heels to ribbons, much as he wanted to do it.

Kneeling down to her, like he'd done near the gorge seven weeks ago, he clasped her in his arms tightly, agreeing with her angry, anguished mutterings, trying to soothe her with his touch and the awareness that even if Rafiki hadn't cared or done a thing to help, _he_ most certainly had.

"How could you be that damn cold?" Ann wailed in accusation, over his right shoulder. "You inhuman creature!"

After both of them had calmed down a touch, Jack heard Rafiki's voice again, clipped and stern.

"Bot' o' you are naïve and dery mistaken indeed it' you tink I would be dat cavalier of a witness. Yes, I saw what you and de crewmen of de Venture endured, but what would you have wanted me to do? Appear in de native village and start beating de savages to wit'in an inch of deir lives with my stick? Paralyze all de giant insects and crabs with my magic? Firmly tell Kong to leave you and your friends alone, Mr. Driscoll? Tell de Tyrannosaurus dinosaurs dat dey were being dery bad and den turn dem into stone, Miss Darrow? Conjure up a magical barrier to protect de rafts in de swamp?"

"Well _**yeah**_, for starters," Jack replied sarcastically. "It would've been nice of you." If looks truly could kill, the one Jack found himself giving Rafiki, would've at the very least put the mandrill in a hospital bed himself.

"But _I cannot do dat_," Rafiki said desperately. "At de nexus of de honeycomb, dis hive of universes, dere are beings far more powerful dan even de most accomplished witch doctor. Dey make de rules in magic, of how it must be used, and I can only follow dem."

_You have a biggie to answer to,_ Jack realized in understanding, _and you have to play square with him. _Suddenly, he felt a surprising race of sympathy for the witch doctor, and it cooled the flames of his anger somewhat.

"Can bot' o' you understand dat it is not my job or de job of any o'ther shaman to fight battles for someone outside the concerns of their kingdom...especially in ano'ter universe? Dat I am not some all-powerful nanny-type entity dat can or should change everyt'ing to make e'derybody's life safe and perfect and happy? Even Ngai himself can't do dat!"

"But why couldn't you stretch the rules just once?" Ann said weakly. "Why couldn't you help save us by at least influencing things in our favor?" Jack stonily nodded in agreement.

"Because dat is not my responsibility or my domain to meddle in as dictated by Ngai!" Rafiki barked angrily, losing patience.

"Look here," he said firmly, "de Greater Powers like Ngai-or God, as you call him-don't e'den really like it all that much when we merely form a 'looking glass spell' to ano'ter universe, much less interfere wit' it. It's playing wit' fire, a huge taboo dat-"

"Okay, all right, we get the picture," Jack said curtly, sighing in irritation. "What's done-or _not_ done-is done, anyway. Neither is dis really explaining how de world dat de looking glass spell chucked us from Kong's lair into de Elephant Graveyard," he mocked the shaman.

"Den I shall explain dat aspect," the unruffled mandrill replied. "But first Ann and Jack, know and remember dis. I did not ignore your angst and pain and sorrow," he said sincerely. "I _did_ do somet'ing on your behalf."

"What?" Ann snorted.

"I was concerned...and I hoped for the best, for your sakes."

After a few minutes of brooding, touched silence had passed, Rafiki spoke once more, mechanically. "Now, most looking glass spells are meant to be like windows. You want to know how dey work?"

Jack empathatically nodded.

"Well, in de fabric of space-time, dere are dery tiny little openings, like pinpricks, always forming and disappearing. Smaller dan an atom, dese tiny openings are called wormholes."

"Wormholes," Jack said thoughtfully. "Fitting name."

"In a looking glass spell, magic is used to take one of dese wormholes, and stretch it out to cover de entire surface of de water. De magic also generates and controls somet'ing called negative gravity, which is used to keep de window open until de shaman is done, and cancels de spell."

Jack, still seated but now a little way to the right of his under control dame, closed his eyes and sighed as quietly as he could. _This is one hell of a lecture, _his mind gaped. _A talking baboon is explaining concepts of theoretical physics to us that scientists probably won't even start to guess at for another twenty years. This is insane._

"Unfortunately," Rafiki said contritely, "somehow-perhaps de negative gravity's force was too powerful-de wormhole my spell formed, unbeknownst to old Rafiki, changed from a passive, one-way window, to a passageway dat teleported de two o' you to de Pridelands."

All Jack could think was, _Good jumping Christ. Charles Fort, eat your heart out._

"So you have no idea how it all went wrong?" Ann asked.

"None," Rafiki said, shaking his head. "I didn't e'den know somet'ing _had _gone wrong until later."

"But if you cast the spell in your home, which I assume was a tree like Mganga's," Jack said, puzzled, "then why is it that we suddenly found ourselves crashing into the Elephant Graveyard and not your place instead?"

"I really don't know Mr. Driscoll," the mandrill shrugged. "My guess is dat the energies, electrical forces, de negative gravity, somet'ing, made de wormhole twist and twitch a bit. It's like when you grab a snake by de neck and it begins to thrash. You don't know where de tail shall strike de ground each time."

"Makes sense," the writer shrugged himself. "Just the luck of the draw then."

"Um hum," Rafiki nodded. "Dat was a big reason, by de by, why I had trouble finding exactly where de two o' you were."

"Well, you sure did a good job of showing up when and where it counted in the end though, and that's good enough for me," Jack replied grudgingly.

"This is all so very confusing," Ann said helplessly, her head in her hands.

Jack barked out a knowing laugh. "Hell, reality itself has become plenty confusing as of late!" he chuckled. "You might as well explain that to us too while you're at it, oh Mr. All-Knowing Baboon," he joshed in lunatic glee. "Tell us how the whole entire scheme of things works in this multiverse!" he cried, leaping to his feet.

It was meant as a joke. A joke by a man driven half-batty, meant to blow off steam that badly needed to be released.

But Jack got more than he bargained for with his request.

"Alright den, Mr. Driscoll, I shall," Rafiki grinned. "And I'll e'den make it simple and fun!" he promised with a little laugh.

"To explain life, de multiverse, why you must go back, and e'deryt'ing else in a nutshell," the witch doctor grandly proclaimed, "old Rafiki is going to start in wit' a little brain teaser now, a thought experiment."

"I can do that," Jack grinned. He loved brain teasers. And anything that delayed what he secretly knew was the inevitable was definitely a welcome thing.

"Dis one is called 'Schrodinger's Cat.' Essentially, it's a scientific principle about stasis, tings being stuck in limbo. Now, de idea is, you take a cat and you put it in a box wit' two sealed dishes of food. One is poisoned, de o'ter one is not."

"As a cat person, I find that deeply disturbing, to put it mildly," Jack replied, brought back down to earth.

"That's horrible!" Ann gasped.

"Dis is only theoretical," Rafiki reassured them. "As I said, dis is just a thought experiment. Indeed, in your future it will become like de mascot of quantum physics. A scientist by de name of Erwin Schrodinger will be de one to conceive of it. But really, neit'er he or anybody else actually put a cat in a box with poi-"

"We both used to have cats. Please, I can't bear to even _picture_ such a thing!" Ann implored.

Rolling his citron eyes slightly, the shaman sighed, a tone of irritation on his breath.

"Okay Miss Darrow. How about if I use a rat instead?"

"Fine by me," Jack dryly replied. "Rats are _disgusting_. I've even been bitten twice by the bastards, and each time I bled like a stuck pi-well, never mind that. Go on."

"I also hate rats with a passion," Ann concurred, shuddering. "Make me want to vomit."

"So we'll make it a rat den I guess. 'Schrodinger's Rat,' instead of adorable cat in dis _made-up_ scenario," Rafiki conceded with an amused smile.

"And in this box it's either gonna eat the safe food or the deadly food," Ann said.

"Yes, but dere's more to it dan dat Miss Darrow," Rafiki replied. "Remember, bot' dishes are sealed. Which lid will end up opening will depend on de random decay of a radioactive sample."

"Radioactive? What?" Ann grunted, her brows furrowing. "I've heard that word before somewhere, but what does it mean?"

"It would be too complicated to explain right now, Miss Darrow," the witch doctor told her. "But it doesn't matter anyhow for our purposes. What's important is dat's it's somet'ing dat can't be predicted, influenced, or even measured from de outside."

"So then what? You just wait?" Jack asked with a shrug.

"Exactly," Rafiki nodded. "The box is secure. Dat rat can't find or make an escape."

"As much as I hate rats, I find that rather creepy all the same," Ann said.

"Well, what's the point of this?" Jack prodded impatiently. "_Is_ there a point?" Nervous and angry, he was not in the best of moods.

"According to dis theoretical experiment, one can just walk away from de box, and as long as no one ever opens it, de rat inside is in what's called an indefinite state. It's not alive to our knowledge-but it's not dead either."

Puzzled, Jack said, "That makes no sense to me. Either a living creature is alive, or it isn't. You're just playing mind games with us now, aren't you?"

"I am not Mr. Driscoll," the shaman earnestly replied. "What I meant is how de rat is in de _**observer's**_ mind and perception. Yes, of _course_ de rat is either alive or dead. But to you, or any ot'er would-be observer, dere is always dat shadow of a doubt."

Leaning his head back with a sigh, the playwright ran his fingers through his thick black hair, shutting his eyes as he put forth, "Well, if the rat has gotten the safe food, how much is available exactly? And how much water? I mean, after a time, isn't someone going to notice, 'Huh, I'm not hearing any more scratching or other rat noises?' Or realize that there's this horrible, putrid smell coming out of the box?"

"You are right dat e'den if it did get de safe food, de rat's provisions would run out eventually," the mandrill agreed. "But while it makes sense dat de rat would den be a former rat-"

Ann giggled at that. "A former rat. That's a good one!"

Even Jack, despite his current sour mood, had to crack a grin too.

"Glad you liked it. De bottom line is dat until and unless you open de box and check, you can't _know_ for sure what de rat's fate was. Of course, dis is all theoretical."

"I get the picture," Jack said.

"Good. Now bot' of you hold dat thought, and use dat as a foundation for ano'ter thought. Like you just said Mr. Driscoll, de rat in dat box is actually either alive after eating de safe food, or dead from eating de poisoned food. On its terms, dere is no indefinite state."

_I am talking quantum physics with a monkey_, thought Jack, dumbfounded. _Jesus help my fragile little mind._

"But!" Rafiki interjected, flicking up a gnarled finger, "dere is a way to resolve dat problem, de paradox, for us ignorant observers!"

"When de radioactive sample begins to decay, dat is an event dat has two possible outcomes for de rat. And so it becomes a fork in de road of fate, dat can either lead to a meal for de rat-or its death."

"Awfully poetic there," Jack commented.

"Now dis is de important ting," the baboon emphasized, ignoring the playwright for the moment. "Imagine dat each of dose branches of de fork leads to a different cell in de honeycomb of de multiverse."

Jack swore his chin came close to touching the floor, the way it dropped. The realization, the sudden blast of knowledge, an awareness of existence's inner workings that was so profound even Einstein himself probably couldn't have imagined it, almost staggered the playwright with its implications. And a _**baboon**_ had prodded him into it, no less!

"Oh. My. God," he whispered. "That would mean..._**everything**_-literally, everything!-not just _could _take place, but _has _taken place somewhere, at some time! And that means there are no real contradictions, not really. The whole damn system is self-correcting!" he shouted in astonished wonder, grinning and flinging his arms wide.

"Excuse me Jack, but I have no idea what you're going on about," Ann said, looking at him in a wary, peculiar way. The way a woman looks at a man she suspects is insane.

Managing to get his excitement under control, Jack reminded himself that comparatively speaking, Ann wasn't as 'clever' or 'knowledgeable' intellectually as he was (Not that it made his Venus, his angel, any less delightful or less of a woman worthy of sharing his heart and soul with).

"What Rafiki's saying Ann," he said helpfully, turning back to her "is that reality, all of it, is like the labyrinth from Greek mythology, where every path splits into two different routes that you can potentially take. Every possible outcome of every event exists in its very own world or history. That means there's an enormous-maybe even infinite!-number of universes, and everything that could've happened in our past, but didn't, still occurred in the past of another universe or universes anyhow. It's like an invisible, barely understandable labyrinth, constructed out of space-time!"

The stage actresses' rose features sank for a few moments in bemused incomprehension, eyes questioning as she wrestled to grasp the concept that her boyfriend already had taken in. Then they goggled in astonished wonder, and even a hint of enchanted delight.

"That is incredible," she enunciated. "Pos-I-tive-ly fantastic! It boggles my mind, but it's almost wonderful to think about too! And also explains a lot," she added thoughtfully, more to herself.

"Yeah, it does," Jack grinned merrily.

"Still, I only partly get this crazy 'labyrinth of reality' business you two fellas are talking about," she said. "You see, I'm the sort of girl who dopes out something like this the best either through seeing the thing done or having a good real-world example put down before me. Could you help a poor dumb Dora out?" she requested, laughing good-naturedly at her own joke.

"By all means Miss Darrow," Rafiki purred in that xylophonic voice. "For an example, let's say a man by de name of Hank is walking along when he encounters a stray dog. Clearly, dere are several possible courses of action Hank can take: he can ignore de dog and go on his way, he can pet de dog for a little while before moving on, he can decide to adopt de dog and give it a home with him, he can give de dog some food, but den have not'ing more to do wit' it, he can ignore de dog but call de pound about it later on, or have a change of heart and go back de next day to look for it, and so on. De point is, dat in dis grand multiverse, _all _potential outcomes occur somewhere, wit' each one being de point where ano'ter branching occurs, each a new path dat leads to ano'ter cell in de comb...and may e'den result in a brand new cell being formed!"

"And like I said, it would automatically correct any paradoxes," Jack said excitedly. "Let's say for example, that I went back in time 21 years and to the bridge of the good ship Titanic. Now let's say I was able to convince Captain Smith or Lieutenant Murdoch that yes, they had a collision with an iceberg coming in the near future. I'd end up saving a ship that ended up sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic," he grinned wryly.

"But that couldn't logically happen. If what you're saying is correct though Rafiki, I _could_ save the liner and the lives of everyone on it-but then that outcome would split off into an entirely separate universe, without making a difference in 'ours.'"

"Right," the baboon witch doctor confirmed.

_If I haven't already, I am going mad, _Jack thought, _and I'm headed there on a runaway train rather than a bicycle. Still, press onward brave soldiers._

He allowed his gaze to rove between Rafiki and Cindy. His mind had divided, it seemed, become a five-ring circus, and in each expanse of sawdust shrouded earth, he was the ringmaster. In one ring, he was terrified beyond words by the awareness that they would be sent back to Skull Island, and the gruesome, painful death that almost certainly awaited them there. In another, he was both dumbfounded and elated by the literally world-changing knowledge Rafiki had just revealed to him about the way existence itself operated, knowledge that the most brilliant physicists could spend a lifetime searching for and never find-to say nothing of the fact that the baboon shaman knew this to begin with. In another, despite the knowledge that they wouldn't be dropped off at the safest point of arrival, he was deeply thankful and relieved to at last be going back to a sane world, the world where he and Ann were born, belonged to, and would die in, where there were no aliens, animals didn't talk, and the people he loved would be waiting. In yet another, he smoldered like an active volcano with rage towards Rafiki for springing this on them, for throwing them under the train like this.

The last part was remembering a Chinese curse Choy-poor, ever accommodating, garrulous Choy-had once mentioned to him in conversation, a curse that in its understated Oriental way sounded deceptively pleasant and even bland until you really thought about it: _May you live in interesting times._ For the last eight weeks, he and Ann had lived in extremely interesting times, yes indeed. He felt that one more interesting thing would drive him totally, off the deep end, handcuff-me-to-a-bed, wacko.

Abruptly, Ann became even more of a bundle of nerves. Looking at Rafiki with a species of entranced horror, she backed up to a bemused Jack and slipped behind him.

Confused, Jack felt her delicate hand tremble against his back, through his undershirt as she said quaveringly, "How do you know all this? Where did you get this power from? Who taught you?"

"My teacher, Mwaguzi did," Rafiki replied, slightly perplexed.

"NO." Ann said nervously. "Where do you get your powers from-and I don't believe that 'greater powers in the nexus' silliness for a moment."

"She's worried that you've made some sort of pact with Satan. Like voodoo or something." Jack clarified for the shaman, reassuringly touching Ann's flank with his right hand. Indeed, that possibility, perhaps influenced by memories of the ghastly, despicable she-shaman from the native village, had occurred to a paranoid part of the playwright's mind as well, although in truth he really didn't know what to think.

At his words, Rafiki burst out in a screeching laugh that made them both jump about three feet. "Oh sakes alive Miss Darrow! My, my! Old Rafiki, Mganga, and ot'er proper shamans are de _last_ folks beings like _him_ want anyt'ing to do wit'! We work in de favor of de light! Bwaa-haa-haa!"

Ann gave a hesitant smile, and Jack felt her muscles relax a touch, but she still looked nonplussed and wary.

"Well, you seem good, more or less, and since you helped Jack and I to medical help here, you can't be all that wicked. But tell me Rafiki, about being a shaman..._Why?_"

It was strange, the amount that could be contained in just one simple, demanding word. _Why are there shamans, witch doctors?_ Ann was saying for both of them. _Why are _**you**_ a shaman?_ _Who gave shamans a role in every universe in the first place?_

Fortunately, Rafiki understood right away. "De answer to your question Miss Darrow," he replied, musing, "is a profound one. But its somet'ing no amount o' words could explain. You'd have to feel it for yourself, experience it for yourself."

Suddenly, a delighted inspiration bloomed across his rainbow features. "But you're de type of woman who likes to see t'ings for herself, right? So how about if old Rafiki sends de two o' you to one last place before Skull Island (at that, Jack mentally winced), where ederyt'ing shall make sense to you about why I am who I am, and be a grand treat in de bargain too! And do not worry, I shall be coming along wit' you," he quickly added, "so don't worry about any treachery taking place."

"If that's the case, I'm giving you guys plenty of room," Cindy commented, turning and walking to near the door.

Her attitude made Jack uneasy, and he turned back to the baboon, asking, "Is this spell dangerous?"

"Potentially," Rafiki idly replied, still insanely grinning like a child. "But not to fear, you are in de hands of a skillful shaman who has safely done performed dery complicated, hazardous spells just like dis one many times before."

"Somehow that doesn't make me feel any better," Ann said dryly.

"But before I do," Rafiki droned on, "because this spell is going to be so complicated, so difficult, wit' many ways in which it could go wrong, dere is some personal information I must know about you first, Jack and Ann."

"What, my phone number and address?" Jack quipped, feeling the corners of his mouth turn up in spite of everything else.

The shaman hooted in amusement. "No, not _dat_ much, Mr. Driscoll," he chuckled. "Just de bare minimum...and I've already gathered most of dat simply by looking at you."

"Now Miss Darrow, when is your birthday?" the mandrill asked, turning to her.

"September 16th," she answered, slightly confused.

"Mr. Driscoll?"

"July 1st."

"Okay, let's see," Rafiki said thoughtfully. "T'ree ud us...assume each breath will involve a cubic foot of air. Allowing for a higher respiratory rate due to excitement, even playfulness-32 breaths per minute. And since dat is de same number as your age Mr. Driscoll," Rafiki added in pleasure, "dis will make de process dat much more streamlined!"

"Um, guess I'm glad to hear that."

"Anyhow, times three...Dat equals 96. Multiplied by three again is 288. Okay, dat number times 20 is 5760...divide by three and you get 1920."

"A very good year," Jack joked.

Turning to the playwright, Rafiki asked "Mr. Driscoll, what's de volume of a cylinder again?"

"V equals pi times r squared times the height," he replied, more than a little baffled.

"T'ank you. Now how did dis go before? 5760 divided by pi is 1833.4...divide by 7 and find the square root of de result...So de circle shall be 32 feet in total."

"Now Miss Darrow, could you stand on dis twine, please? And no matter what, do not go near de edge of de circle after I form it."

"Okay," Ann conceded.

With one end of the twine under her left foot, Rafiki let out 16 feet of twine before stopping, clipping the strand with his teeth and then placing the butt of his staff on the other end to hold it in place.

"Dis spell is going to take a few moments to get going," he informed them. "Do not move or say anyting. And you will probably want to hang on to each o'ter too. You ready?"

"As we'll ever be," Ann replied.

"Go ahead," Jack said with a curt nod as he drew up to Ann and held her close.

Then Rafiki began to chant out loud. A curious, listening, attentive stillness began to drift down and settle around the three of them like January snow, becoming ever more potent with each phrase, as their little patch of the universe waited to hear its orders.

An electric, humming charge seemed to be surrounding and infusing them, a sense of expectation, of anticipation, of sheer potential energy that grew and throbbed around their heads. Slowly, it transformed into a blend of power and terror and amazement and delight that could almost be breathed like sweltering jungle air.

Abruptly, some of that charge _exploded_ out from the bottom of the shaman's staff and raced around them like fire tearing down a trail of gasoline, like a foxhound on a fresh scent, glowing green like a hundred thousand fireflies. Shooting off to the left, it curved behind all three primates before meeting itself back at Rafiki's staff to form a perfect circle of foxfire.

Pulling the stick back, Rafiki continued to chant, his voice containing way more self-assurance than Jack and the woman he was clutching felt. It was the vocal equivalent of the expression on the face of a cowboy on a bucking horse, a sailor at the wheel of his ship in a savage gale, an animal trainer working with tigers in a cage. It was the demeanor of someone who is contending with terribly dangerous, raw power, but is riding that danger like a surfboard, long skilled at mastering both the colossal power and their own private fear, knowing that the results are worth it in the end.

That mastery bound the witch doctor's spell ever tighter around the circle-squeezing air in, squeezing power and tension in, pushing inward with such sheer force that the circle and whatever was in it had no alternative but to be somewhere else.

At the same time, Jack had a sense that something else was going on too, something that was the polar opposite of this, right above his ebony-haired head. It was an impression that, as impossible as it seemed, the very air was slowly parting, like bread dough being pulled apart by a baker's hands.

_This'll be the way out,_ Jack realized. _Rafiki's gonna send us up right through it with his magic, just like a lift going up in its shaft._

Faster and faster the baboon went, as all around everything faded away to jet black, streaked with jade green. The silence began to sing with the roiling power. This was a song that was without sound, was felt in the muscles and bones, like a church organ, like a ringing gong.

And then the last felt-sound, like a silent thunderclap, louder, like sixty sticks of dynamite going off, so potent that reality itself seemed to be destroyed in that insane darkness, striking Jack Driscoll deaf and blind as he hunched over Ann, quaking and hoping for the best, teeth clenched so hard they hurt-

Then total silence once more, and darkness.

"We're here," Rafiki whispered. "Mr. Driscoll, Miss Darrow, feel free to open your eyes and have a look around. Just don't go near de edge of de circle."

Very slowly, cautiously, Jack uncoiled his muscles, relaxed his grip on Ann and raised his head.

At first he thought Rafiki had teleported them to some tropical beach at night. There was darkness above, and a glaring white surface below.

Like a toad gulping down a ground beetle, the playwright swallowed air and momentarily closed his eyes as he began to get his bearings. It was partly a reflexive action, because his eardrums were receiving nada in the way of input right at the moment. Under the circumstances, that was to be expected; after all, this stillness was more complete then anything which could be experienced on Earth. The frozen, alabaster wastes of Antarctica's Dronning Maud Land, the blistering expanses of sand in Saudi Arabia's Rub' al Khali, the massive plain of salt called Lake Eyre in Australia-they couldn't compare to this stark, ringing silence.

Jack's other motive for gulping air was a more practical one, to force down a sudden, churning, inexplicable feeling of nausea that made his esophageal sphincter dilate. He didn't realize it yet, but the sudden transfer to 17 percent gravity had been hard on his stomach.

That was better.

Instead of coral sand, Jack became aware that he was standing on a mixture of gray gravel, little spheres of black or clear glass, and gray pebbles, interspersed with rocks ranging in size from as big as his fist to as big as a small cantaloupe. All of them were coated in a silvery dust, never blown about by wind and possessing the consistency of talcum powder.

"Jack, look up," Ann whispered in a hushed, awed voice, absently touching him on the arm. So he did.

Seeing is believing, some people will tell you.

But just like when he'd heard a bull elephant speak, like when he'd finally seen the seething, monumental hulk that was Kong for the first time, an overwhelmed Jack, struck speechless, needed to stare at the sky several times to grasp what his eyes were taking in.

When he did seize the truth, shining and laid out before him like a hoard of gems, an exotic emotion welled up in his breast. His eyes began to water and sting with tears. They were tears generated from the very much bearable anguish of an impossible, wholly impractical dream that suddenly comes true after decades of hopeless longing, a forgotten, subliminal childhood fantasy fulfilled at last.

Yes, that sky could easily move even the most stalwart of souls to weep with its beauty. It was pure velvet black, an expanse of primal, seductive darkness that was studded with tens of thousands of stars, miniature cauldrons blazing with a cold, implacable, fierce brilliance that human beings wouldn't be able to appreciate for about another three decades-and then only a select few. It was a night sky that paradoxically had a ravening, emperor sun glaring down from its zenith, pooling their shadows jet black and razor sharp around their feet.

Rafiki himself was getting misty-eyed. "Now look over dere," he said quietly, as if in a place of worship. "On your left. Several hundred yards away."

On their left was a steep slope that plunged down and down and down to meet a deep chasm that had never known water or wind, filled with blackness as forbidding and stark as a pit in hell, without even the presence of air to gentle it. On its far side stretched a flat, stony plain that seemed to stop too suddenly, pulling up at an abnormally close horizon.

Out on this plain was something Jack could never have expected.

If you spend enough time roaming an Earthly desert, you can expect to see some indication of the presence of animal life eventually. Here though, in this empty, wondrous lunar wasteland, devoid of any air or water, subjected to unimaginable, roasting heat by day that would casserole a man in his own blood, and beyond bone-chilling cold- harsh enough to freeze oxygen solid-at night, there wouldn't be so much as a mite or rotifer to find.

Yet, jarringly, like something out of a magical storybook, a dazzling, inviting blocky glow of gold and copper sat on four spider legs. For a wild moment or two, Jack wondered if this was the lunar equivalent of the great, heat-pitted, crimson sphere in London's _The Red One_, a mysterious object left behind in this barren panorama by an extraterrestrial race.

A line from the tale flashed through his thoughts. _A child of intelligences, remote and unguessable, working corporally in metals, it indubitably was. _

Then he noticed a silvery pole about a hundred feet from the shining platform on stilts, with an American flag standing out at a right angle, held straight by a rod running through the upper edge. A vital requirement-for here, no wind would ever stir it.

"Christ in a trashcan," Ann said matter-of-factly, her voice brimming with amazement. "Oh my goodness."

"No," Jack said in hushed disbelief. "Just impossible." Memories flooded back into his head, of reading H. G. Wells' _The First Men in the Moon_, John Jacob Astor IV's _A Journey in Other Worlds_, Burroughs' _The Moon Maid_, and other tales of mankind successfully breaking the bonds of Earth's gravity to travel through the reaches of space. And here was proof of that first enormous step.

The patriotic part of Jack was immensely pleased to see that not only was this proof that his own species had landed on the moon, but that fellow Americans had clearly been the ones to do it.

"Is this...is this in our future too?" Ann haltingly asked Rafiki.

"Dat it is," he confirmed with a slow nod. "Thirty-nine years to be precise. But dis is not de site of de dery _first_ lunar landing. Dat one, from de American Apollo 11 mission, is in de southern Sea of Tranquility, while we are in de Descartes Highlands, looking at what was left behind from de Apollo 16 mission. De reason we can't go dere instead," the mandrill added, anticipating their disappointed questions, "is because dat'll be de place where future generations of humans will build de first permanent base on de moon as a symbolic gesture-so we witch doctors never go down dere for fear of leaving footprints where someone may find dem."

"Understood," Ann said.

"Holy Mackerel, they even brought some sort of _car_ over with them!" the writer exclaimed, extending one of his elongated fingers in the direction of the abandoned landing platform of the LEM Orion, gaze focused on the first Lunar Rover, a delicate, deceptively sturdy, wagon-like little vehicle neatly parked alongside a boulder. Still in excellent condition, it had been used only three times by astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke Jr. of Pasadena for trips to Flag Crater, Smoky Mountain, and Stone Mountain, on which the playwright now stood.

Almost overwhelmed by it all, Jack slowly sunk down on one knee and brushed his broad right hand along the pale, ageless, bone-dry lunar soil, turning over and examining stones that hadn't been moved or acted upon in at least four billion years. Selecting a chunk of breccia about the size of a golf ball, he picked it up and clutched it in his fist, looking around once more as he whispered reverently, "What magnificent desolation."

"Jack," Ann said, her face turned upward. The tone of her angelic voice made him look up as well-and confronted with the sight, he forgot all about the moon rock, letting it fall in a puff of silver dust.

What both New Yorkers found themselves looking at was home. It was a slice of a disk four times bigger than the moon as seen from Earth, and the Moon's truncated horizon made it seem even more massive. It wasn't the Earth in full view, but a waxing crescent, streaked with swirls of ivory clouds and blazing with a potent green-blue radiance-a rich, sensual light, like the sparkling fire exuding from the heart of an opal. That light forever dismissed the idea that blue and green were "cool" colors; it seemed like one could warm their hands at that vibrant, welcoming crescent.

_Home!_ Jack's soul sang like a wood thrush, a silent paean of longing and wonder and awe and yearning.

"So gorgeous. So wonderful. Yes, so _gorgeous_," Rafiki said softly, putting Jack's thoughts into words. "In all de universes I have e'der seen or visited, dere is no greater beauty and glory t'an dis planet. In ten thousand worlds, no greater artwork or marvel dan dis."

"You wanted to know where my power, de power of all shamans comes from, and why I have chosen to work with dis magic-severely at times," the mandrill said solemnly, turning to look at the humans. "Well, whatever force made _dat_ made de power too, de power of life, of healing, de power to balance de darkness with de light and to set t'ings right. It's all one and de same."

"And as for 'why,'" he went on passionately, "_**dat's**_ 'why.'"

There was no need for him to indicate "that."

"Not just for excitement, or for fun, or for prestige, or for convenience-al'tough old Rafiki will admit dat is a part of it. But more importantly, we do what we do because somebody _must_ take care of dis place, of de Circle of Life that flows around it. And not just part of it-not just one kingdom or nation, or one way o' t'inking and relating to de world, or one set of rules, or one species, at de expense of all de o'ters. It needs to be _everyt'ing_ dat lives. All twenty-odd million species, with nothing left out, nobody ignored. One whole planet. Somebody's got to make sure it develops and thrives as well as it can. Or just dat it hangs in dere. Dat's what shamans do."

Shuffling, Jack put in, "That's kind of like what I believe as a socialist. It also reminds me of something my father would often say when I was growing up: 'If you don't take charge of something yourself, it might not get done properly, or even get done at all.'"

"Exactly." Rafiki nodded. "And no matter which universe you live in, we can't afford to let _dat_ get ruined and messed up. Dat's _our home_ after all, and we have nowhere else to go. O'ter folks will have to live dere too, in de future. So we can and must _all_ be shamans in our own way, doing what part we can to keep entropy and irresponsibility and carelessness from devastating dis planet...Like Scar and his hyenas are going to devastate de Pridelands," he sighed mournfully.

As Jack chewed on that, the mandrill abruptly seemed to become aware of something.

"Jack, Ann, I'm sorry, but we must go now. De fragment of atmosphere we have surrounding us acts as somet'ing of a thermal shield, but we're taking up heat fast all de same."

"Now that you mention it, yeah, I'm getting rather warm," Ann remarked, tugging at her blouse with one hand and fanning her face with the other.

"Can I bring this rock back with us?" Jack requested hopefully. "I can't tell you how much it would mean to me," he added quietly, gravely.

The shaman gave the writer an uncertain, considering look that then shifted to one of acquiescence.

"Considering what you've had to go t'ru on my account, and what I must have both o't you go back to, you deserve _dat_ much at least. Besides, taking a little extra mass back on de return trip should provide some leeway, just in case de spell goes slightly off one way or de o'ter in its parameters... Just do not tell anyone about de rock, or how you got it though. Dat could cause difficulties, both for you, and de way your nation's history is supposed to progress."

"Understood. Others would just think I was either talking nonsense or hopped up on drugs anyway," Jack dismissed. "And thank you," he gratefully added.

"You're welcome. Now let's go."

This time, Ann was the one to reach out and protectively pull her white knight close this time. "I assume it'll be like before?"

"No, actually," Rafiki said, wagging his head. "It just takes a lot o't effort to make a hole in de fabric of space-time, move _all_ dis air and ourselves tru it, resisting de pull of gravity all de while."

"Wait a moment," Jack said hurriedly, panting against the blast-furnace heat rapidly permeating his flesh. "I thought magic wasn't beholden to physical laws like that."

Rafiki gave an it-is-what-it-is sort of shrug. "Eden wit' magic," he said, "one must obey de way physics works. Cutting a path tru a forest is much more grueling dan walking back along de result, after all. Now get ready."

Not fully sure what to expect, Jack inhaled deeply as Rafiki did the same, then said just five short words of gibberish.

There was a flash of green neon, a sensation like being _yanked_ down by the feet, then _WHAM!_-and both New Yorkers tumbled onto their butts and backs as they left the lunar noontime, 1990 A.D., for Sector 12 General Hospital, 2267 A.D. and in another separate universe, getting back to their feet in the room they'd just left.

Rafiki went to each compass point of the circle, breaking it with a muttered incantation and a swipe of his staff.

After what seemed like forever, Jack gave an unhappy sigh.

"Rafiki," he said, "if you were watching our trials on Skull Island-and I have no reason to doubt that it's the truth, surely you must know that it's nothing short of a miracle ten times over that our hearts are still beating. And surely you must know that the chances that one of us, and probably both, is going to end up dead long before reaching the beach are almost a given."

"I know dat," the baboon said, raising and then dropping his hands in a helpless gesture.

"So please, at least send Ann there, where I can know she'll be safe," Jack begged. "Don't endanger her by-"

"Jack no!" Ann protested. "You'll never make it by yourself! I want to help you-"

She was cut off by an unhappy, frustration-tinged grumble from the shaman.

"Mr. Driscoll, what I said must not have sunk in. Everyt'ing must be de way it was! It can't be helped. If I change t'ings in any little way, de fabric of reality, of space-time itself, will be compromised. It will make an echo that will tear t'ings apart, make t'ings melt!"

"I don't care," Jack said defiantly. "I'm sick and tired of being put in danger, of nearly getting killed, of watching others die, of being forced to be in places I don't want to be and do things I don't want to do, of being bamboozled and lied to, and so is Ann!"

"I second that!" his dame chimed in.

"Mr. Driscoll-," Rafiki intoned, mouth half open as he groped for words. "Dis isn't something dat I'm just doing to be mean or cruel! Any shaman wort'y of de name knows no callousness, I can assure you. But if I don't send bot' o' back to exactly where and when you were when I made de mistake, dere are going to be serious consequences, rifts and upheavals dat will affect and warp at least t'ree different universes, probably more! And dey'll start out in de places you've had contact with-dis hospital station, de Pridelands, Skull Island, and your Manhattan! Dat's not a maybe! It's a certainty!"

"You're worried about not surviving de return journey to de Venture?" Rafiki continued. "Well, bot' o' you will end up dying, crushed atom by atom, if you choose to stay here just one more week, or produce any quantum inconsistency at all! And how do you tink Manhattan will fare? It already has four unstable geological faults of its own, running right t'ru de bedrock! One small tear, a twitch in space-time, will leave de place looking like a giant went at it wit' an enormous broom!" The witch doctor was flailing his arms and staff in the air now, agitated and desperate. "At least two and a half million people and o'ter sentient beings could die, maybe-"

"Could," Jack interrupted, desperately grasping at straws. Agitated himself now, he realized he was pacing about and weaving, breathing hard, like a wild beast in a cage.

Cindy shook her head. "_**Will**_," she said, and there was such a weight of certainty and misery and terror in the way she uttered the word that Jack quit pacing and Ann quit fidgeting, and they both goggled at the nurse in amazement. "I don't like to be brutal like this," she told them, eyes suddenly, disturbingly dark and hooded and savage like a hawk's, "but I guess you're both saying that you don't give a damn whether I and all the other staff who've healed your wounds, saved your life Mr. Driscoll, made you comfortable, given you the royal treatment, and given you medications, whether more than two million people in New York City, your surviving friends and comrades on the Venture, and all the inhabitants of the Pridelands would die, just as long as you two don't have to risk your necks."

Ann spluttered in consternation as she took refuge behind Jack, "No, it's not that, it's just that if Kong catches up to-"

"Say, sister, I didn't mean it that way," the writer hurriedly gabbled, raising his hands in protest. "Of course I give a care! But what about us two?"

In a flash, a memory came to him, of a story he'd read slightly less than three centuries ago, it seemed, called _The Lady or the Tiger_, by Frank Stockton. In it, an accused man was given the choice of two doors to open in an arena. Behind one was a ravenous tiger that would promptly make cat food out of him if he opened that particular door. Behind another was a looker of a woman who he would be instantly married to, regardless of martial status, if he opened that one.

Suddenly, Jack knew the sickening, paralyzing terror that must've torn the poor man apart when the moment came, when he had to make such an awful decision. It was just that two lives now, not one, were in the balance.

"You don't e'den care dat they might die, dat entire universes might die," Rafiki judgmentally went on, "so long as you and Ann are okay. You'll run dat risk regardless d'ough, won't you?"

"Please stop!" Ann implored miserably.

"No, I'd never do such a-"

Suddenly, Jack realized in another searing flash of white-hot fury that he was being manipulated a third time, this time through one big cruel guilt trip. His own values were being used against him! Even worse, Ann, his beautiful angel, was being bullied and played with too!

Although he already knew, deep down, what the inevitable outcome would, must be, this infuriating awareness automatically made him want to resist all the harder. He was not going to dumbly, quietly go into the deadfall this time, no siree, not without some squealing and kicking.

"Button your lip, you filthy ape!" he roared. "I've had enough of your bullshit voodoo scare tactics! You _will_ send _both _of us at least to where the drawbridge crosses the chasm! Good God, even the damn _bugs_ in that jungle are vicious monsters!" the writer cried, a spasm of absolute, visceral revulsion and terror momentarily sweeping through him at the nightmare memories.

"You've already survived far worse," Rafiki pointed out, in what Jack regarded as the lamest attempt at reassurance ever spoken.

"That's right-and it was by both the grace of God and the skin of our teeth!" Jack shouted, flinging his arms up and to the sides. "How many times can we be that lucky? How many?" His voice, normally droning and nasal, was taking on a high, keening, strange quality.

Dodging away just in time from the trawl net of hysteria about to encompass his mind, he turned his back on the witch doctor, snarling, "My response is, we're not doing it, we'll never let you chuck us back into that green hell, and that's final!"

"Mr. Driscoll, and Miss Darrow," Rafiki said sympathetically, "you are mistaken if you tink I don't feel pity for bot' o' you, or regret what I need to do. I'm dery sorry. I really, really am. I wish so much I _could _place you back on de shore or in New York. But I don't make de rules!"

"_**Christ damnit Rafiki!**_**" **the playwright bellowed, his vocal cords stinging from the force. The rage multiplied exponentially, feeding off itself in a literal vicious cycle. Now it was feral and primal, the crimson, dynamite anger of a grizzly running wounded. Suddenly he found himself flying at the mandrill, totally out of control, propelled by desperation and an eagerness to feel his fist colliding with that ugly, garish dog face.

Crouching low, Rafiki met him with a sideways sweep of his stick. There was a firecracker sound from the playwright's kneecaps, and a shocking, white-hot burst of agony that stabbed right up into his scarred thighs, sending him tumbling to the floor as his legs folded.

For a few moments, Jack was agog, just lying there and fiercely clutching his throbbing knees, groaning as Ann shrieked in rage, "You bastard! You leave my man alone!" before flying at Rafiki herself.

Instead of whacking her with the stick as well, the mandrill had enough chivalry to merely hold it crosswise and parry her attempts, scratching and yelling, to lunge at him, shoving her back in an eerie imitation of what the writer had himself done to keep a walleyed leopard tom from his throat.

The searing pain in and under Jack's kneecaps softened in the meantime, as well as the shock, and he worked them carefully. No problems, no grating torment of broken bone rasping together. A thick tendril of relief sprouted through the red-brown pavement of ire inside him at the realization that he'd still be able to walk and run.

_Great to know I'll still be able to run for my life alongside Ann for a few moments before that murderous ape or some vicious dinosaur or other abomination catches up and snuffs my life out_, he thought ruefully.

As it passed through his head, Ann, with Cindy unsuccessfully trying to pull her back, somehow managed to sneak past Rafiki's defenses and kick the baboon hard in the belly. As Jack unsteadily levered himself off the linoleum, massaging his knees all the while, it gave him extreme pleasure to see the monkey's eyes bulge in shock as he gave a short, sharp, _kUH_ cry and clutch his abdomen.

The shaman recovered quickly though, eyes narrowing as he gave a deep grunt, as mandrills do when enraged. Head lowered, fangs bared like awful bone knives, he strong-armed Ann with the shaft of the staff, clutched lengthwise once more, catching her just underneath her breasts and knocking her to the ground.

Jack thought he'd been he'd been wild with wrath before, wild as a man could get. The way his hatred multiplied at the sight of Ann being knocked down, even if Rafiki's intent was simply to defend himself, proved him wrong.

Springing forward, features twisted by vindictiveness, he grabbed hold of the witch doctor's left arm, thick with dense muscle. He was going to fling this bastard, this lying traitor, to the floor and mop it up with him. What of it if this ugly creature was stronger and would soon turn the tables with his dagger tusks and gouging nails? He'd make him pay! He'd beat him and stomp him and kick him and rip out tufts of pelt-

Swinging around, even as the writer tugged back and down, the shaman raised his stick high in the air. It hung there, suspended for a moment, before smashing into his skull, the dark length of it bisecting his field of vision. Jack tried to lash out, but to no avail.

An awful, too-familiar _crack_ burst out as the staff connected with bone, the sound of a bullwhip's lash. A single loud tone, pure and silvery, mantled in hurt, filled his ears. It was like there was a huge triangle or tuning fork inside his head, and someone had just struck it. The room went as gray and grainy as an Edison film for a few seconds, sparks of green flashing inside his eyeballs.

"_Jack! Oh God!_" Ann screamed in horror as his legs became boneless.

_I'm getting so goddamned sick of this sensation_, the playwright thought through the agony as he dropped like a lead weight, eyes watering with pain. Sprawling onto his right side, his hands went to his upper forehead, clutching it as he pitifully whined-groaned, "Yeah, just inflict more pain on me, why don't ya! It's not like Jack hasn't had his crown nearly broken enough times over the past eight weeks, after all."

"You brought it on yourself by trying to grab and attack me," Rafiki curtly snapped back at the dazed New Yorker. "And don't even tink about retaliating Miss Darrow," he addressed her icily, even as he heard the soles of her shoes rhythmically slapping in his direction.

Then, gratefully, Jack registered Ann's smooth arms sliding under his shoulders through the pain in his head, lifting him up into a seated position. Coming around, she squatted on her hams before him, her face a picture of concern as she said, "Are you okay Jack?"

Through the dissipating giddiness and pain, he managed to reply, "Yeah, I'll be alright in a bit," as he rubbed what was already shaping up to be an impressive purple lump above his hairline with his left hand. Her dread-widened eyes brought back grim, unwanted memories of the first, more serious blow he'd received during this horrible misadventure.

Leaving the welt from Rafiki's stick, his fingers, more suited to typing than struggle or war, reached back and slowly stroked the slight depression and healed, ragged scalp wounds inflicted by the tiger shark teeth set in that length of wood. It had all occurred so quickly.

As he'd thrown punches, stomped bare fudge brown feet, and generally fought like an enraged wildcat, there had been a deep whistle as the club whisked down through the rain-stitched air, a stick of dynamite going off inside his head, accompanied by the red gouging of the serrated, angular, inlaid shark teeth through his skin, and then a despairing blackness engulfing him, unhurried yet unstoppable.

An excruciating headache, a bleeding, torn head, and time torn away that he should rightly have been using to stand guard over his angel, possibly keeping those filthy savages from abducting her. That was the price he'd paid for resisting the ghastly islanders.

That blow hadn't been an ending after all, but a pulled trigger. So had begun those 36 hours that had made an utter wreck of him, in mind as well as body, racing and climbing through a jungle that actually _stank_ of malice and hate, to say nothing of the nature of most of its inhabitants.

And now they were going to be cast back into that death-forest.

"I am dery sorry I had to do dat to you, Mr. Driscoll," Rafiki apologized, "but dere was no alternative...just like dere is none to what must be. I understand dat you feel betrayed, hurt, upset and angry. I don't blame you. But I'll still do what I must do as a witch doctor."

"Yeah, you're a witch doctor alright," Jack gritted out bitterly. "I wish you'd just left us at the gorge," he said mournfully, hunching over and putting his knuckles into his eye sockets, as if to squeeze out the despair, black as that lunar gorge, which pressed against the backs of those jade orbs. "Why couldn't you have just followed my request and let me die in Ann's arms, let the nightmare end?" It wasn't a question, but a lament.

Ann gasped. "Jack, don't you dare say that!" she said pointedly, taking his hands in hers. "As long as you're alive, there's always some hope to hold out for. I should know that better than anyone," she added for emphasis.

"Dat's well said," Rafiki sagely nodded. "Dere is always a chance."

It was the thinnest of ledges, a sliver of comfort to hang on to.

"A lot of people will die at best. At worst, dese upheavals will destroy entire worlds, sooner or later."

"But we only have your word on that!" Jack protested.

"Yes. But wouldn't you tink a shaman's word and knowledge any good? And why would I lie to you about dis? Considering dat I'm going to and through all dis trouble for de sake of being honest wit' you."

"He didn't have to tell you two," Cindy pointed out. "But then he would've been lying, in a way-and we both think you don't deserve to be lied to."

"I could easily have used trickery, or used my magic to make you return through taking away all your free will," Rafiki informed them, taking up the nurse's lead, "but I didn't...and wouldn't."

"Old Rafiki may be just a zany, half-crazy, wise old baboon," he went on, "but he is mature enough and disciplined enough to tell de truth, harsh though it may be. And to take it. Are you?"

His question wasn't a taunt or an indictment. It was honestly meant.

"You bet your bottom dime I am," Jack replied. "It's just that I don't want to see Ann or I end up dead, especially after we've already come so close there, so many times. Seriously, all we did on that island, right from the moment we first saw it, was run smack into one crisis after the other and barely escape with our lives. We're like some pathetic baseball team that never wins a game, for God's sake!"

"And the next time we take the field, we won't be headed to the playoffs," Ann added glumly.

"You say that like it's a sure thing," Cindy replied. "But it isn't, not at all. I mean, who can tell if a baseball team with a losing record won't have its fortunes change with the next game?"

"You can't," Ann admitted. "But there's just a one in four chance that Jack and I will ever see the Venture again, and the deck is stacked against us like you can't comprehend, Cindy. And if Kong catches up to us, he'll ri-"

"Ann, enough," Jack urged desperately.

Ann turned, giving him an apologetic, ashamed stare. It then turned into a considering, lost one. He stared back, holding that sapphire gaze.

"Jack..." she whispered helplessly, defeated.

"Yeah. I wish like hell we had a choice."

"I don't think we have one." Her eyes darted from Rafiki, to Cindy, then back to him. "If they're even halfway right about this...I can't even imagine such awful things."

"Millions of lives," he said in meditative concurrence, more to himself than her.

_So which is it, Jackie boy?_ _The lady or the tiger? Which one shall the playwright-prince choose?_

Suddenly, Jack Driscoll's body just slumped, the posture of a corpse hanging from the hangman's noose. He felt and looked like the Indian in Frederic Remington's bronze "End of the Trail." It was that awful, impotent, despairing moment of surrender.

"All right," he said thickly, "Alright, you bastard. You win. You have to follow the greater good after all, set things right again. Just too bad it comes at our expense," he said bitterly.

Jack's feet moved at a snail's pace, feeling like concrete blocks as he numbly walked to the chair on the left. Despondently, telling himself this wasn't actually happening, the playwright lifted up each article of clothing with his right hand, draping it over his left arm. Haltingly, giving Ann sad, helpless glances, he bent down to pick up his socks and shoes, whispering, "I'm sorry," before ripping his gaze away and retreating into the men's bathroom.

Taking off the singlet and track shorts felt like preparing himself for his own sacrifice. Putting on the old clothing felt as if he was donning instruments of torture, like the angina-inducing jacket in _The Star-Rover_.

Ann was already outside when he paced out the door, his movements the ones of a man with severe palsy in his legs.

The helpless expression on her face, twisted by helpless futility and frustration and fear, almost hurt him more than his own inner pain.

Rafiki was standing there, in the middle, holding out his stick, butt-end first. Jack knew what he wanted them to do.

With a churning, impotent resentment, the playwright gave Ann a short, curt, grim and apologetic nod, silently telling her "Ballgame's over."

Jack's heart was pounding in his ears as he plodded up to Rafiki, Ann behind him. He knelt down, feeling like a medieval prisoner exposing his neck for the sword.

Before he grabbed the stick, he looked up at the mandrill's face. An odd mix of emotions did battle within the playwright. He wanted to spit in the witch doctor's eye, tell him he dearly hoped Scar's hyenas would eat him alive and slowly, maybe even give him a sly punch in the nuts. He wanted to do it. He really did.

And yet...that wasn't the kind of man he was. Without Rafiki's help, he would be _dead_, for cripes sake! Ann would be left grief-stricken and alone, and the consequences from such a discrepancy in the fabric of reality would've been disasterous.

If it hadn't been for Rafiki's mistake, they never would've gotten to experience the fairy-tale world of talking creatures the baboon called home, met the Mzima Pride or the painted dogs, or any other of the talking creatures they'd encountered-even if it did ultimately turn out to be very much a 'in the wrong place at the wrong time,' situation. But Rafiki couldn't have known that.

Last but by no means least-he'd given them the supreme, barely conceivable privilege of being the very first humans in their history and timeline to stand on **the moon!**

"Before I grab this stick Rafiki," Jack fumed, voice seething, "I want to tell you that I hate you, and I will hate you for doing this to us for the rest of my life, whether that can be measured in minutes or decades. I won't ever forget nor forgive you for this despicable trick, and neither will Ann."

"But in the spirit of a classic paradox, of Schrodinger's Cat, I also want to tell you thanks, in spite of everything," he added, a reluctant, grudging gratitude flooding into his words. "Thanks for getting me to this hospital where my life could be saved, and Ann's own wounds could be stitched, most importantly. Thanks for giving us the chance to marvel at and experience both your world and this one. Finally, I really want to thank you for taking us to-well, up there," he finished simply, ecstasy seeping through his breast at the raw new memory. "So although you don't fully deserve it, thank you for all that, Rafiki.

"And I want to thank _you_," Rafiki said in turn. "On behalf of de three million lives, minimum, dat will keep on living, and de three or more universes dat will remain stable. They'll ne'der know of course. But Mganga and I will...and we won't ever forget."

"Whole lot of good that'll do us!" Ann said, caught between desperate laughter and impotent tears.

"Miss Darrow," Rafiki said, with a weary smile, "I'm afraid dat if you're in dis universe searching for comfort and fairness, you've come to de wrong place...whether you're a witch doctor or just plain average, sentient or simple."

Giving a deep, shuddering breath, Jack looked back at his angel, at the tight look of harried, tearful misery on her face that just broke his heart. It was all the same mess, the same goddamn mess, and all they ended up doing was plunging into the shit again. _It goes on and on and on and on, and where's the happy ending, the place of refuge, for us?_

"One cat in a sealed box with a dish of water, two covered dishes of food, and some radioactive atoms for company," Rafiki's voice droned mechanically, optimistically from somewhere above the writer's head. "Until you open de lid of dat box, he has a fifty-fifty chance. Dere's still hope to cling on to."

"And when you _do_ open it, you've just got to take what comes. Welcome to de way our universe and all reality works, folks," the shaman snorted, a sound that was sardonic and scornful and bitter and helpless all at once.

"Here we go then," Ann said softly into Jack's ear from behind him, her hands slowly, deliberately sliding, warm and fragile and sleek, down each of his flanks, where her arms then wrapped around his abdomen above his belt like lengths of taut cable. "We're about to open the box now, and run down that forking path blindfolded, aren't we?"

Through the pure white noise of helpless terror that Jack's mind was now drowning in, he had just enough rationality left to answer, "Christ yeah. And Christ help _us_. But if we didn't do this, and we chose to play it safe, not worrying about what might or might not happen to our friends, family, or fellow humans...Well, even if Rafiki and Cindy are lying through their teeth-we may be _in_ one cell of the honeycomb, but we _belong_ to and _know_ another. No matter what comes, I want to least _try_ to get back, and most of all get _you_ back to the ship safely."

"And even though Carl's camera is destroyed now, which means no film-and isn't _that_ just a crying shame-" he added sardonically, "we still don't know how things'll work out in the end. If we just got sent back to New York, we'd end up living our lives in an indefinite state ourselves, asking questions, always wondering if we could've changed what did-or didn't-happen before the Venture left at last."

For a few beats of his heart, Jack Goralski Driscoll realized how much _more_ frightening that would be than facing Skull Island a second time.

"All I know is that whatever happens, I'd rather die with you than without you," Ann whispered, kissing him behind the ear, on his cheekbone.

At that, Jack completely broke down. Tears threatened to leak from his eyes as he turned and swept Ann into his embrace. She reciprocated as he kissed her fiercely, cradling the back of her head as he did so, feeling her silky curls of hair, her warm, luscious lips against his own, her breasts pressing against his body as her arms squeezed his trunk like bands of sun-warmed iron. It was a last kiss in Jack's mind, and they held onto it until his lungs cried out for oxygen.

They parted, breathing heavily, taking and holding each other hands.

"Ann," he told her, gabbling past his nervousness, "while I still have the chance to do it, I want to tell you that I...I...I lo-"

"Ssssshhhhhh," Ann cut him off, her voice a silky whisper as she pressed two of her fingers, delicate and soft and warm, against his lips. "I know Jack. I've known for a very long time. Some things are better off left unsaid between a man and a woman," she told him, thinly smiling.

_It's not about words!_ Jack thought in delight, grinning in pleasure from ear to ear. _That_ was a wave of emotion he definitely wanted to leave on.

"Okay Rafiki," he commanded, drawing a deep, fortifying breath as he turned back towards the witch doctor. "Let's get this over with."

Silently, the mandrill sage placed his staff upright on the floor. Ann wrapped her arms around the playwight's abdomen with the strength of a boa constrictor, knowing that in ten seconds, there would be only empty air and jungle beneath her.

Reaching forward, Jack Driscoll seized the stick like a drowning man grabbing on to a life preserver. Through the blood drumming in his ears, he heard Rafiki chanting. The staff rapidly began to glow green, shrouding his broad, clenched hands in neon light.

One last time there was that impression of expectation, of potential energy building on itself like an electric charge, of the air itself opening up below them.

Then there was an explosive burst of green light, like the Emerald City of Oz being blasted to pieces, and Jack's stomach heaved underneath him as everything fell away.

And then, all at once, he was once more desperately clinging not to a magic staff of wood, but white bone shaped into a terrible Grim Reaper scythe, the wing claw of a living, stinking gargoyle that gibbered and gasped and growled in distress as it plummeted earthward in a half-controlled fall, the canopy and warped terrain of Skull Island's rainforest flashing by in a moonlit blur two hundred feet beneath them.

* * *

**For such a gargantuan chapter, I felt an equally impressive collection of epigrams was warranted.**

**Charles Fort was a man who could justifiably be called history's first paranormal investigator. Indeed, he was the individual who first coined the term "teleportation." During his lifetime, Fort developed a great interest in, lectured about, and wrote both books and magazine articles about various strange things honest, observant human beings from all walks of life and nations had documented. While some of his ideas may seem far-out by both the standards of his time and ours, such as his belief that all existence is a vast, invisible organic pseudo-entity, or that the heavens are a rotating shell just a scant few light-years from where we stand, many of the occurrances he examined, a.k.a falls of frogs, shellfish, fish, and so on, animals like big cats being seen in places they shouldn't be, mysterious lights in the sky, religious statues producing bodily fluids, spontaneous human combustion, and so forth, continue to puzzle and fascinate people today.**

**Jack's inner monolouge about how Ann isn't as clever or knowledgable as he is by no means meant to degrade or deride Ann's character in any way. Remember, in this story I have Ann's mother, the single parent in her life, dying of typhus when she was 13. It would've been a miracle for Ann to manage to stay in the education system even for just one more year at best. Nor should it be meant to imply that she's stupid. Then as now, a single woman doesn't last long on the streets of New York City by being a fool-and for 16 years at that!**

**The example I picked of the Titanic to illustrate the Many-Worlds hypothesis is another nod to Adrien Brody, who was born 61 years to the day after the great ship went down.**

**Jack's awed comment about magnificent desolation is of course, a respectful tribute to Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on our moon and similar words he uttered.**

**Finally, I must give a huge, grateful tip of the hat to Jorge Luis Borges and the stunning Discovery Channel series _Through The Wormhole_, for introducing me to concepts that were invaluable in writing and understanding the science in this chapter.**

**Please read and review!**


	39. Danger Under The Moon

**Again, I am so happy to finally be done with the second, Sector 12 Hospital portion of this fic and returning to 1933 Skull Island, and then New York. Now I can get this fic _moving_ again, give you folks the drama and action and rich, descriptive thrills-a-minute you're all looking forward to!**

**The next few chapters will be ones that in my mind, fill in the gaps in the movie. From the position of the moon in the scene where Jack makes off with Ann, I'd estimate the time of night as around 2:30 A.M, maybe 3. After a few quick shots of our heroes getting out of the river and racing madly through the jungle though, we see the sky is much lighter when they reach the gate. Taking the sun's position into account, they probably reached the village shortly before 7 A.M., meaning at least four hours passed by in the interim. Naturally, I plan to make good use of those last hours on the island!**

* * *

"It was a fearsome walk, and one which will be with me so long as memory holds." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, _The Lost World_, 1912.

"This sucks more than anything that has ever sucked before." From the 1996 movie _Beavis And Butt-head Do America_.

For Ann, both her emotions and the world were a fragmented, swirling blur, an out of control kaleidoscope. The predominant one right now was terror. Terror at having to run the gauntlet of this hellish isle's jungles a second time, without the protection of Kong or any weapons above the level of rocks and sticks. Terror at the idea of being painfully slaughtered and eaten by some abomidable horror. Terror as the bat-wolf fiercely, wildly scrabbled sideways at the stout vine for a couple moments, then succumbed to the pull of gravity as Kong, his glowering, honey-colored eyes wide with shock and desperation, made a quick, clumsy swipe at them and missed as their unwilling glider peeled away.

Even through the sound of the bat-wolf's frantically flapping free wing, like an enormous towel being shaken out about her ears, its staccato, hacking chattering, and the whoosh of the air speeding past them, she could hear Kong roar in fury. That made even more breeds of terror well up inside her. Terror about what she knew he'd do to Jack if he caught up to them. Terror that the gigantic ape might now view her as an ungrateful traitor, and deal out the ultimate punishment to _her_ as well for such a transgression. Terror that he'd reclaim her and forever restrict her to a dangerous, solitary, probably short life which she didn't want.

But most of all, her greatest terror at the moment was of falling. Unlike her sister Alice (who wasn't all that fond of even looking out from church or theater balconies), Ann had never been particularly scared of high places. However, she'd also always had something reasonably solid beneath her trim feet.

Now there was just thin air and jungle and ridges, leaping up at and toward her and Jack like it was ramming them, and her arms clutched her fella's toned midsection like her life depended on it. It did.

She heard Kong give an even louder, awesome, deafening roar of primal rage and challenge and disbelief that even at this distance seemed to reverbrerate through her very bones. At the same moment, her broken, streaked vision registered a river, glinting in the moonlight, appearing below her, then expanding rapidly.

Ann had no idea if the living gargoyle struggling against their weight was spiraling down in that direction by pure chance, or was intending to dip them in the water in an attempt to make its human cargo let go. Whatever the reason, she knew she'd rather make a crash landing there than on tree limbs or worse, rock.

It was just as well, for she could sense Jack's arms were swiftly weakening under the strain of supporting both his weight and hers as the bat-wolf's skewed body, followed and circled by three or four of its buddies, swooped down along the river's course.

Maybe forty feet above its moon-silvered surface, Jack decided that this was the place and the time, and released his grip. As the bat-wolf and its loathsome stench sprung up and away, Ann screamed as the water leapt up at them, plunging feet first through the surface in a stinging fountain of spray.

Ann wasn't a greenhorn when it came to swimming. She'd swum in water over her head before in pools, lakes, and at the public beaches. Indeed, back in the summer of '30, she'd even been a horse diver for a time, clutching Sunflower's or Wally's or Flame's stocky neck for dear life as the animal went soaring off a ramp to crash into a deep pool 40 feet below. A wild, fast-moving river though, was different, and she could only hold a snatched breath as the current pulled her below the surface and downstream, cold and swirling.

Slowly breathing out, she felt the fire in her lungs and the mild stinging sensation of air bubbles escaping her nostrils as she desperately paddled for what she hoped like hell was the surface. Her left heel bumped against a smoothed boulder, and then she felt water sheeting off her head and hair as she broke the surface.

When the water drained out of her ear canals a moment or two later, two sounds assailed them. The first was another of Kong's thunderous roars, now at least a mile and a half away on his mountain. It was a roar different from the previous one, an outburst of helpless despair and anguish and loss. If Ann hadn't had more pressing things to occupy her attention at the present moment, her heart would've been pierced by a stiletto of guilt and pity by that bellow.

The other sound was Jack's voice desperately calling her name, behind her and a little way upstream.

"I'm-glub-here! Help!" she cried in answer, a choking sound above the river's rush.

Struggling mightily to keep her head above water, Ann turned into the current and trode water on her back at a forty-five degree angle, eyes sweeping the silver-plated surface for Jack's own head. A few seconds later, she saw him several yards upstream.

He spotted her too, and called out, "Hang on Ann! I'm coming!" Leaping into action, he rolled on his belly and breaststroked towards her, rapidly covering the distance with his long arms.

On reaching her, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him, shouting "Can you swim?"

"Not in water like this!" she replied, shaking her head.

His eyes widening with concern, Jack commanded Ann, "Hang on to my belt with one hand and be still!" Getting behind her, he then rolled on to his back like a sea otter and wrapped his left arm around her chest, gaining purchase underneath her shoulders as she felt for, found, then seized his belt and trouser waist with her right hand. Face pointed to the sky, she felt water move up against her legs, and knew a few brief moments of panic before she realized it was simply the movements of Jack's own legs as he went into a backstroke, pulling water with one arm and frog-kicking.

"Stay still, and keep your body at an angle to mine," his voice came from behind her head. Knowing better than to waste time and energy fighting the current, he backstroked toward the bank at an angle. She could feel the tension in his body: no doubt like her, he fully expected some horrible, gigantic fish, crocodile, or Lord knew what to come erupting out of the water at any moment and swallow them whole. But nothing molested them, and a few minutes later they were both in the shallows.

Rolling on to her belly, Ann touched bottom first, crawling on her hands and knees as Jack righted himself before they both stood and sloshed ashore onto the rocky bank. The stones made her hobble, and she was grateful to reach a patch of pea gravel, on which she stood while she caught her breath and wrung the water out of her hair, liquid pearls in the moonlight.

His own locks plastered against his head, Jack came up to her, hastily taking up a position between her and the jungle. Water streamed from his own clothes, which he absentmindedly pressed and squeezed as he fearfully scanned the shoreline and the forest around them for unexpected visitors.

Taking her hand in his, they stood that way for a few long moments as they both looked around, expectant and downtrodden at the same time. Ann felt like they were mutually waiting for something, but what? For Rafiki to appear and announce that he'd found a way to bend the rules? To tell them it was all just a nasty joke? To provide a guide or protector for them?

She found herself looking up at the waxing white orb in the sky which bathed them with its reflected light. They had just _been_ there, for goodness sake's, something her wildest hopes could never have conceived of! And found out that in the future, other men would too!

Abruptly, Jack huskily gnarled, "To hell with that rassing-frassing monkey. That infernal bastard's not going to help us, and we can't just stand here like staked-out goats until something eats us up. Let's get going," he softly commaded, tugging at her hand.

After bending down to pick up an apple sized stone in her right hand, Ann followed at his heels. As they entered the jungle, Jack quickly and deliberately led her to a small cave in the rock, partially hidden by the drooping branches of a bush growing just above it.

From the echo of their footsteps and what she could see of the cave's ceiling, it couldn't be home to anything particularly large. All the same, they just didn't know what sort of creatures could be in there or what they could do to them.

Apprehension written all over him, Jack motioned to her to get ready to run before crouching down and picking up a rock himself. Her body tensed for flight, soul filled with fear and disappointment and expectation, she watched as he lobbed it into the cave.

There was a surprised scurrying from inside, and Ann nearly jumped out of her skin, Jack leaping back with a strangled "Ah!" as a three-foot crocodile, probably as startled as they were, came rushing out. Green and yellow in color, it had a bizarre, ducklike, spatula head with large eyes. Galloping like a bear on four amazingly long, limber legs, it bolted past them to the river, slid into the water, and disappeared below the surface with a swish of its tail.

Hand at his breastbone, Jack's voice shook as he said "Good Jesus."

As a relieved Ann's own heart sunk back down into her chest, she nervously quipped, "At least we finally encountered something on this island that ran _from _us for a change." She realized she'd dropped her stone.

"As opposed to the alternative," Jack said grimly, taking a deep breath. "Looks like its unoccupied now though."

Placing his hand on her back, he gently pushed her inside the shallow crevice, penetrating about eight feet into the earth. "Don't move," he ordered, pointing at the ground before moving away and out of her sight outside. A few seconds later, apparently satisfied that everything was safe for the moment, he came back inside, crouching alongside her.

Miserable and feeling so immensely let down, Ann said quietly, "God, I wish we were at the Venture right now."

"I do too," Jack angrily grumbled, his deep jaw set as he sharply nodded, eyes dark as he turned to look at her. "That goddamn cheat. But we don't have the time right now to sit here and gripe about being betrayed. We probably have half an hour at best before Kong arri-"

Ann then saw his eyes widen and his cheeks flush as he cut himself off in mid-sentence, tilting his head downward and away in supreme embarrassment.

"You'd think I'd be used to it by now," he babbled apologetically, "but I'm sorry for staring when you're all undress-Aw jeez! Sorry!" he beseeched, slapping his hands over his angular face.

Self-consciousness seeping into and heating her own cheeks as she realized how the soaked slip was sticking to and defining her gracile curves, she nevertheless assured him, "Hey, it can't be helped. And if I have to be like this, better you than anyone el-"

As if to remind them that the clock was ticking, that they were being hunted, an explosive, rumbling scream tore through the air, a deep "Wrraagghh!"

A bolt of panic stabbed through Ann, stiffening her frame as she whipped around towards the source of the sound in tandem with Jack. Still on his mountain, but descending, probably by the same immense stairway he'd climbed while taking her there earlier that afternoon or two months ago, depending on how you wanted to think of it. He knew this place like she knew the paths and sidewalks of Central Park, and could cover ground far more swiftly than an Olympic athlete on his best day could manage.

She felt Jack put his arm around her terror-rigid shoulders, as he whispered to her, "Ann, don't worry. We're safe and hidden here. Just stay still."

A second, desperate bellowing cry rent the still early morning air, causing sleeping birds to burst into panicked flight.

Her terror sharpened, an invisible butcher knife piercing her stomach as she grasped Jack's flank, whispering, "He's coming Jack. He knows just where we are." She couldn't believe it. This was like watching some frightening movie, having someone suddenly pause it for the longest time, then playing it from where it left off. It was just that they were in the horrid film themselves now. So unfair!

Trying to sound confident for both of them, Jack replied, "No, he can't be. Hear his roars? They're coming from random places. And we're at least a mile away from his home Ann, with all sorts of jungle and hills between us. He's searching at random Ann," he calmly tried to assure her, "and we just need to stay hidden until we reach the village."

"He's making a beeline for us," Ann insisted. "He'll find me, and recapture me, come hell or hot water." A profound fear twisted her guts, a fear that had consumed her ever since she'd seen their clothing on the chairs-but not so much for herself.

"Damned if he will," Jack icily responded.

If she hadn't been so scared for him, Ann would've laughed at such a preposterous idea, of Jack actually making things difficult for Kong, standing up to the ape.

Turning and facing him, she pleaded, "Jack, if he finds us, you've _got_ to run away or hide. He'll kill you, and you know it!"

"I'm not leaving you. I won't," he said stubbornly.

"Don't be stupid!" she begged, dropping to her knees before him as her fear increased. "Remember what I just told Rafiki? How I saw him kill three dinosaurs sixty times your size just to protect me? You nearly got killed by a leopard that weighed less than _you_ do Jack! What chance would you have against _him_?" she cried, curls giving a quick flop as she nodded in the direction of the mountain.

"Ann, I don't care," Jack softly replied, placing his left hand on her shoulder as he reached out to carress her cheek with the other. "I'm not cutting and running, you hear me? Don't ask me to do it because I can't."

"Don't you understand?" she implored, more stridently, grabbing both his wrists, courting panic. "He won't harm me, but he'll _**kill**_ you!"

"I understand that I've endured too much and lost too much to just run out on _my_ favorite dame. And even if she asks me to dash off like a rabbit," Jack indiginantly answered, voice sharp as his profile as he glared at her. "Like a coward." He almost spat the words.

"Twice Jack!" Ann half-wailed, tears starting to leak from the corners of her eyes. "Twice I've believed you were dead! Don't you dare die in front of me a third time!"

"Then let's get moving," Jack said anxiously, gesturing outward with both his wide hands, palms up. "We can agree on _that_ much for now, I think."

Lurching to his feet, Jack went to the cave's mouth, where he attentively stared outside for a few moments. Evidently satisfied that everything looked safe enough, he turned and hurriedly gestured to her, whispering, "Okay, let's go."

Standing erect herself, Ann joined him at the cave's thresehold. There were only frogs, insects, and the rush of the river to be heard. From somewhere nearby came the hushed, melodic, two-note hoot of a buffy fish owl.

It was a peaceful enough scene, awash in moonlight that transformed the leaves into half-dollars and the river's water into molten silver. But she knew better.

Right now, Ann Darrow would've preferred to wrestle an alligator than plunge back into this jungle that made Tarzan's home look like a petting zoo. But every second they stayed here was another second Kong came ever closer. Once more, his air-shaking, rumbling screech burst out from the mountain's slopes.

Grabbing her hand, Jack yanked at her, and they both charged into the jungle at a flat-out run, Ann's heart pounding in her chest. Leaves and branches and thorns raked and slapped and scratched them, but they paid them little heed, only slowing once they were about a few hundred feet into the forest, and even then continuing to move at a good clip.

Under the trees, the moonlight was fragmented and broken, as if shining through a partly clogged sieve. It shone down in scattered, eerie pillars on the rotting leaves and mud and decaying logs. As her eyes became more accustomed to the blackness, Ann could discern different degrees of darkness under the canopy. Some of the trees were dimly visible, while between and among them there were ink-black patches that even her dark-widened pupils couldn't penetrate. They stayed well away from those, half-expecting some nocturnal horror to lunge out at them from these shadows.

Once more, Ann's nostrils were filled with a heavy, cloying, greenhouse smell, and she again experienced the sweltering humidity, like she was standing in a hot, steaming basin of tomato soup. It didn't take long for their skin and clothing to become as besmirched and filthy as it had last time.

As Jack began to extend his left leg to stand atop a fallen log, a chilling hiss suddenly rasped through the air, and Ann saw moonlight glinting on dark scales. Immediately, she yanked back on Jack's arm, grabbing the back of his shirt and tugging that as well.

Taken off balance, his arms windmilled briefly as his shoulders crashed into Ann's chest, the impact knocking her on her butt as he fell heavily across her thighs. As they untangled their legs, breathing thickly, she saw a limbless creature, scales sparkling like a Vosan's in a shaft of moonlight, rise into view. Weaving back and forth like a daisy in the breeze, its neck flattened out in an ominous hood as it coldly stared at them.

His voice slightly shaky from dawning horror as they both got to their feet, Jack whispered, "God, I almost stepped right on that cobra. Thanks for pulling me back in time before I got a bite Ann," he gratefully told her.

"Lucky thing I noticed it in time," she nodded, equally aghast at what could've happened to her Jack of Hearts if the cobra, mouth gaping and hissing as it eyed them warily, had injected its poison into his flesh.

Giving the defensive snake a healthy berth, Jack pointed at a thick stand of tree ferns about forty feet away, turning to give her a brief, meaningful look. Nodding to show she understood his intentions, she accompanied him to the cluster, and they both sidled inside.

"Okay, that was certainly a wake-up call," Jack said stiffly as soon as they sat down, a tone of self-reproach to his words. "If we want to keep a step ahead of Kong and get back to the Venture alive, we have to put our heads together and make a plan. We can't afford to get lost or tear around like imbeciles."

Ann nodded in fervent agreement. "Any way I can help?"

"You bet," he replied. "First of all, when Kong took you to his lair, and you were watching the sunset with him, did you see exactly where this river leads to?"

Prodding her brain, Ann replied, "Not its entire length, no. Kong's cave looks out over a bay on the opposite side of the island than where the Venture landed, so the mountainside was blocking a lot of my view. But from what I could see, the river flows in that general direction."

Jack nodded thoughtfully. "About southeast. That makes sense, since the Venture's crewmen and I followed his track more or less northwest the first time. So that's the way for us to start heading," he told her, gesturing with his head.

"We don't know exactly where the river meets the sea though Jack, or how close its mouth would be to the huge wall," Ann cautiously pointed out.

"I know," Jack replied. "I do have a pretty good idea of where the wall is in relation to the rest of the island though, and something tells me that if the river deviates off course too much from the direction we're heading, we'll be able to see it clearly by that time anyhow. And even if we can't, I can always climb a tree to get a bearing on it," he assured her.

Ann had a horrible image of anxiously looking up into the leafy crown of a tree, listening to Jack's progress in climbing, then suddenly hearing him give a heartwrenching shriek as some arboreal monster tore him to pieces, watching in anguish as his blood pattered and trickled down on the ground like a gruesome rain, but said nothing.

He must've seen it flick through her eyes all the same however, for he reached out and tenderly stroked her cheek and throat before kissing her crown. Then, levering himself erect, he extended his right hand to her as she got to her feet and crept out of the tree ferns together.

"We also need some way to defend ourselves," Jack said solemnly as he scanned the jungle floor. Spying what he wanted, he walked forward and picked up a good, stout stick, about two and a half feet in length, formed of dense wood and thick as his forearm.

"Better than nothing, but I sure could use a machete or a loaded Tommy gun. Heck, a book of matches and a few sticks of dynamite would be more then fine by me," the writer gravely half-quipped as he hefted the fallen branch, getting a sense of its weight.

He then came up with a smaller makeshift club for Ann, which he handed to her, and then pulled a partly buried rock out of the ground, about the size and shape of a large potato, which he placed in his pocket, saying, "If we get in trouble and something is bent on attacking us, I'll toss this rock behind me and you grab it. Smash the beast in the head or knock out its teeth."

"Okay," Ann nodded, although she wondered how much good that could do if they encountered the grinning, terrible dragons Kong had killed in her defense, or something else equally colossal.

"And unlike the last time I came through this jungle, there's only your pair of peepers to assist mine," he told her. "So how about when we walk, I'll keep my eyes and ears focused on things in front of us and up in the trees, and you watch and listen for anything that may be coming from behind or from the sides?" he proposed.

"All right then."

"Step where I step if you can manage it," Jack droned as he turned away and began to slowly walk with measured, loping, deliberate strides, Ann's fingers lightly hooked over his belt.

Neither of them uttered a word, Ann's ears straining to hear any hint of danger over the sounds of the night creatures.

Abruptly, after traveling two hundred yards, Ann heard a muffled crunching and cracking of branches maybe a hundred feet to their left. Large animals, two of them, eating plants. Stopping, she brought Jack to a halt with a quick yank at his belt.

Eyes wide, he turned and looked at her questioningly, body tense as she pointed to the left. Immediately, he hurried her to a tree, and they crouched between two of its flaring buttress roots, Ann clutching Jack's waist fearfully as he kept his gaze locked in the direction she'd indicated.

Slowly, ponderously, a pair of enormous gray-black reptiles plodded into view with remarkable grace and poise, softly grunting as they continuously gathered up ferns and herbs with their blocky, horse-like lips. As long as a limousine, the four-legged titans were almost the size of the meat-eaters Kong had taken on. Jack would just have been able to reach their myopic, piggy eyes from a standing position.

It struck the actress that they looked amazingly like reptilian versions of Mbathi and other white rhinos. They had the same build, the two large conical horns, the square lips and the brooding, sorrowful look to their faces. On their upper neck and back though, were very un-rhino like pebbly scutes and smaller, intimidating looking pyramids of bone, to say nothing of their long, thick tails and red ochre heads.

The larger of the animals led the way, bearing noticeably bigger horns than his slightly smaller companion, causing Ann to wonder if they were seeing a mated pair together. Then, as the beasts grunted and ate entire ferns and tugged vines loose from trees with their horns to eat, the presumed female suddenly caught their scent.

With a mild snort, she stopped in her tracks and turned to face in their direction. Both humans went rigid, holding their breath, Jack touching the small of Ann's back in a silent plea not to run, not to draw attention to themselves-

The bull too, went on the alert at his mate's reaction, standing tall as he joined her in sniffing the sultry night air. They couldn't see them with their weak eyes, that much was evident. Fiercely, Ann prayed that the red-headed rhino-reptiles wouldn't press their investigation any further or become angered by the human odor. They were plant-eaters, yes. But she figured they also had those horns for a good reason. And they were so big!

The bull then gave a dismissive sort of chuff, and to Ann's great relief, turned and headed back down his intended path, his mate following, grazing all the while. Nerves a-quiver, she released the breath she hadn't been aware of holding as Jack muttered "Good Christ," under his breath, touching her side by way of thanks.

They waited until the two giants had moved off before Jack, as slowly and unobtrusively as a turtle slipping into the water, rose to his feet and helped Ann up before they struck out again. As she clutched his belt a second time, Ann could still hear the sound of the rhino-reptiles moving through the jungle. A spiral of envy coiled through her abdomen as she looked in their direction. Those creatures weren't being hunted by a lovelorn, monster ape. They knew where they were, and could actually protect themselves against the jungle's dangers.

A nightjar called, a strange, wood-chopping sound, as they pressed on, Ann swatting at a sparrow-sized mosquito that tried to impale her upper arm. Then Jack himself stopped, holding up one finger to be silent. Something else was walking through the forest, alone and at a quick trot. It was about Jack's height, weighing maybe 250 pounds, walking on two legs. On the instant they both went into a crouch among some saplings.

Whatever it was was going to cross their path in seconds, and quite close to them at that. Ann could feel her boyfriend's muscles tense in his arms and shoulders as he got ready to wield his club, to ward off what was approaching them in the moon-spangled darkness.

As they held their breath, a bird, a hideous flightless bird that smelt of new leather and carrion, strode into view. Tall as a man and hunchbacked like a vulture, it looked like a cross between a marabou stork, a Pteranodon, and an emu. A bony crest jutted out from the back of its naked head as its leering eyes, cruel and cunning, darted back and forth, neck drawn back into the dirty gray mop of tattered feathers covering its body. A great pink wattle, pendulous and breastlike, dangled from its throat, swinging with each turkey-like step it took. It was so nasty and ugly looking Ann's insides twisted in revulsion.

If the uncouth bird saw them at all, its disposition must've been a lot better than its looks, for it trotted by without even a glance in their direction. Once more, Ann felt the stiffness in her muscles gradually dissipate as she gave a grateful sigh.

Motioning to her to stay down, Jack warily got up and crept forward a few feet, listening. "Okay, its safe," he whispered, turning and gesturing to her. Her nerves fraying, Ann stood erect and took up her position behind Jack, watching for danger behind them.

Then, after walking 20 feet, they got a lucky break. Instead of uneven ground covered with rotting leaves, stones, and strewn with fallen branches and logs which threatened to break or twist an ankle, Ann suddenly felt firm, bare mud under the soles of her feet.

The moon, dropping in the sky, shone far more brightly here, coating the ground in platinum. They'd stumbled onto a natural highway, the Skull Island equivalent of a deer trail-only this one was wide enough to drive a car on. In the mud were numerous tracks, including those left behind by the ugly bird they'd both just clapped eyes on.

"Well, looks like we finally caught a break for once," Jack whispered in delight. "We've got to be careful though," he softly amended. "I've read that tigers sometimes wait by animal trails like this one to ambush other animals, and I'd bet a thousand bucks the predators here do the exact same thing."

Going silent again, he then broke into a slow, cautious jog, ever scanning the sides of the dinosaur trail and the trees arching above it as Ann kept up with his pace, happy to be moving at speed now. Because they were in a valley, the trail led in the same direction as the river. Indeed, sometimes they encountered a narrower path, trod smooth by generations of dinosaur feet, which broke off from the main trail and led down to the river, where the great beasts presumably drank during the heat of the day.

Down one of these paths, at the bottom of a curve in the trail only a hundred feet from the now slower moving river, Ann heard a big splash. Turning to the right as she passed, she glimpsed the head of an inconceivably gigantic crocodile tilted above the surface as it crushed and bolted down a huge lungfish, at least nine feet long.

The croc's snaggled teeth were the size of railroad spikes, and its mouth looked big enough to swallow an entire mule in one gulp. With an interior shudder, and immensely grateful to be a healthy distance away from the water, Ann jogged on, hand at Jack's back.

The game trail led them up a hill, and the ground became more rugged, filled with jagged stones as they climbed. Trying to be brave, not to show weakness, Ann tried to bear up against the pain of the stones scraping and abrading her feet without complaint.

Jack however, quickly became aware of her stumbling and hobbling. Turning, he looked at her feet, eyes becoming glum as he looked back up into her eyes, saying quietly, "Oh gosh Ann, your poor feet. If you want, I can carry you over this stretch," he offered.

"That's sweet of you Jack, but no," Ann replied, shaking her head. "It'll just slow both of us down, and we won't be able to use our clubs if something attacks us."

"But if you go over this stuff barefoot, we'll be slowed down by that too," Jack pointed out. "You'll also leave a blood trail, and anything that gets wind of that will chase us down like chickens after a cricket. I'll just have to carry you until this trail reaches softer ground again."

"How about if we just go downslope," Ann suggested, gesturing to her left, "and then circle around the hill until we get back to the path? There'll be dead leaves covering the ground, we won't have to struggle uphill, and it just might keep Kong guessing if he arrives in the meantime."

"That doesn't sound very wise to me Ann," Jack said warily. "At least here on this path we can see what's coming and where we're putting our feet. Anything could be hidden in that forest, and we might not know until we're right on top of it."

"I know," Ann agreed, swallowing at the thought of what dangers could be lurking in the darker places. "But we have to keep moving as fast as we can, even if it means taking a risk. I don't think he can see much better then we can at night Jack, but that _**will**_ change when the sun comes up! We've got to put as much distance as we can between us!"

"Then I guess we'd better gamble on going this different route," Jack hesitantly shrugged as he turned and carefully picked his way down the hillside, Ann right behind.

The forest was so much more forbidding off the trail. Ann could hardly see a thing as Jack felt his way along with only the odd shaft or haze of moonlight to guide them. Tightly, her pale fingers clutched his belt, her breath ringing in her ears. There were logs and sticks and mushrooms in their way that threatened to trip them up, vegetation raking and slapping their bodies in the darkness.

But the flooring of dead leaves, sending up a cloying aroma in the fetid, still air, was a mercy to her feet, and they made much better time than if they'd kept to the hill and its cruel, stony ground. Ann had no idea how good Kong's sense of smell was. Surely though, if he decided that they'd gone down the game trail, this detour would confuse him for at least a little while?

About halfway through their semi-circle around the hill, she suddenly heard Jack give a drawn, strained "Oh dear Christ," and come to a sudden stop, so abruptly she almost collided with his back. Still looking ahead into the nighttime gloom, voice little more than a sigh, he told her, "Ann, don't you _dare_ move or speak until I can tell where this smell is coming from."

"What smell?" she breathily enquired in Jack's ear, her frightened eyes raking the dark jungle.

"Blood," he hissed back through his teeth. "And plenty of it. Now please, be quiet!" he begged wildly.

_Blood..._Ann thought in horror. _Oh my goodness_. Then she smelt it too.

It was a thick, coppery reek she'd become all too familiar with, a scent that would haunt her nightmares until her dying day. It was the smell of the island itself, an aroma of violence and savagery and killing, the calling card of an exotic monster lurking nearby.

Sixty feet in front of them was a large clump of tree ferns, ten-foot tall parasols of green fronds diverging from the tops of slim, brown-black stalks. She realized that the blood smell was coming from there, and that they'd nearly stumbled on some fierce predator's kill. Jack had figured this out already, and was gesturing to her to back up, quickly but quietly.

Fear constricting her spine, Ann was more than happy to oblige. They'd only backed up a few yards when Ann's heel came down on a stick. The crack it produced sounded like a plate breaking in her ears, and she froze, every sinew taut as a drumskin, knowing she'd just given the game away.

Then her very blood seemed to turn to ice too, and Jack brandished his club in what she knew deep down to be a brave, but futile gesture, as something in that copse of tree ferns, reeking of shed blood and death and terror, gave a single low, cavernous growl.

* * *

**And so the plot _really_ thickens... **

**In the companion book _The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island_, the pair of massive reptiles Ann and Jack encounter are known as Diablosaurus, a species of short-necked sauropod. The storklike bird which crosses their path is called Profanornis sordicus. The bat-creatures are called Terapusmordax. The small crocodilian Jack flushes out of the cave is not in TWoK, but belongs to a 110 million year old North African species called Anatosuchus, or "duck crocodile." The large crocodile Ann spies through a gap in the trees does not appear in the book either, but is meant to be an older male Deinosuchus (terror crocodile), a Mid-Cretaceous alligator from the Southern U.S that is estimated to have reached between 40 to 50 feet in length. The fish being chomped is a larger version of a Queensland lungfish.**

**As ever, I like my reviews.**


	40. A Waking Nightmare

**Ah, it's so fun to have a bit of canon material to work from again, and to be writing action scenes! **

**Credit for one scene in this chapter partly goes to RebeccaAnn, a good friend and the superb authoress of _The Writer and The Actress._ In a fascinating example of how great minds think alike, this particular scene in her fic turned out to be rather similar to the one I'd drafted. I've tried to make it as different as I can manage as a result, but without erasing my original concept for it.**

* * *

"Holy men tell us life is a mystery. They embrace that concept happily. But some mysteries bite and bark, and come to get you in the dark." Cold Fire, by Dean Koontz, 1991.

"Bugs are in the trees/ and they're watching yyyy-oooo-uuuu!/ Wwwhhhhooooaaaaa!/ You better watch out/ or the insects will get you/ You better watch out/ or the insects will get you/" _Insects_, by Osaka Popstar.

"He who loses control, loses!" Andre Braugher as Francis Pembleton in Season 3 of the series _Homicide: Life on the Street._

An alligator.

That was what the menacing, deep, guttural growl most sounded like in Jack Driscoll's ears. Not that he'd actually heard one of the huge reptiles produce the thick, motorcycle-engine rumble in the flesh of course, but instead knew the sound from listening to recordings the lamented Herb Cooper had taken in the Everglades and the great Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.

And yet, there was something mammalian to the sound, like the snarl of a big dog or lion-which he knew very well. Whatever it was lurking in the tree ferns and shadows though, had to be at least four times bigger and nastier than any alligator that ever lived.

A lunatic, too-curious-for-its-own-good part of Jack wanted to draw closer, to see what was concealed by those impenetrable shadows (if only to better appreciate what was going to kill him in the next thirty seconds), but at the same time he and the woman behind him had gone stock-still with fright, the response of the rabbit faced by the weasel.

The producer of the sound, and the savage death it proclaimed was just twenty yards away. Too close to possibly outrun. Despondently, Jack looked over his shoulder at Ann, gone pallid as the needle of moonlight she'd halted in, then at the suddenly ridiculous club he clutched in his hands, shivers flowing down his spine like melting ice sliding off a roof.

He could smell the blood of the creature the unknown beast had slaughtered. Too late, he realized that even before the rusty odor had drifted to his hooked nose, this part of the forest had been as quiet as the depths of a cave, with no frogs, owls, katydids or crickets daring to produce sounds here.

They were mad to have come this way! Of course though, he'd known that whatever path they could've chosen, they'd never had much hope of getting out of this together and alive anyhow. A part of him bitterly hoped Rafiki was happy to see this.

There was a mild rustle of leaf litter from in the ferns, and Jack tensed as an inoculation of adrenaline gushed through his veins, preparing to buy his Venus time to run away or climb a tree to safety at the cost of his own life, to deliver a forceful smack or jab to one of the eyes or nostrils of this unseen, unknown horror with this silly makeshift club, to smell its hot foul breath washing over him, smelling of blood and rot and other abominable things just before he felt the terminal agony of its teeth sinking into his flesh, his ribs snapping-

He knew in despair that all he would be able to do now against such a monster was die, to go down fighting. Behind him, the writer heard Ann give a muffled, involuntary little gasp of fear.

After that understandable reaction though, there were no other sounds or movements in their little patch of jungle. No tree ferns cracking, no leaf litter rustling as the unknown dragon barreled out at them. As his pulse pounded in his ears like kettledrums, Jack was suddenly aware of how his lips were drawn tightly over his teeth.

The menacing, spine-shaking growl came a second time. Through a new explosion of dread, it occurred to Jack that besides being as scary as hell, this husky sound had a different quality from the first one. It had something insistent in its tone...even possessive?

The realization slashed through Jack's mind that maybe this beast wasn't so much threatening or getting ready to attack them as politely asking them to get lost, to let it enjoy its meal in peace. With a cautious, hopeful relief, he let his left hand fall from the club and arm hanging, gestured to Ann to slowly, carefully back up. Jack never took his jade eyes off the butcher shop smelling clump of ferns, black as the deep sea.

He didn't know if it was the wise thing to do as they started to back away, covered in gooseflesh. Would their movement provoke the beast into attacking? Despite his utmost attempts (and Ann's) to be quiet, they couldn't help treading on the odd stick or rustling some leaves a little themselves, making the playwright clench his teeth and wince in anticipation every time. But save for one final hard, demonic gnarl, the shadowed predator displayed no reaction.

With every few tentative backward strides, blinking back a perversely icy sweat, Jack's heartbeat dared to marginally slow down, and his racing breaths did too. Still, he didn't dare let himself believe they were out of immediate danger until they'd backed at least twenty more yards away, each about as complacent about the matter as if they'd been strolling through a pit of rattlesnakes.

At that point, he turned and gestured to Ann to walk in front of him this time, while he covered her back. Keeping his right eye trained on the black copse of ferns, Jack cautiously guided her in a wide half-circle, picking their steps and parting vegetation in their path with great care.

Only when the smell of gore petered out did Jack settle down, giving a great, shuddering sigh of pent-up terror and relief. Badly shaken herself, Ann turned toward him, tears pooling at the bottom of her eyes as they shared a tight, fleeting embrace. It was a silent way of soothing each other, of finding badly needed reassurance and comfort. It was also a small, disbelieving celebration of the fact that once more, their luck had held, and they'd gotten out of this scrape together and alive.

"That was too close," Ann mumbled shakily. "Too, too close."

"You're damn right about that," Jack weakly agreed. "Jesus, I can't believe we stumbled on a fresh kill and came out of it alive."

"That beast could've ripped us apart," Ann said distantly. "But it only asked us to leave instead."

"That's probably the most generous behavior one of the creatures here has displayed toward us-or at least toward _**me**_," the playwright amended. "But it's not going to happen a second time, that's for sure."

Ann nodded gravely. "We were so, so lucky. You lead the way again Jack."

So they discreetly struck out again, slinking through the underbrush like fugitives, ears alert to the sounds of the night's creatures.

The actress was right, they _had_ been immensely lucky. They would never fully know however, the _true_ extent to which their luck had been stretched during this encounter.

* * *

_Blood coated the great reptile's face and dripped from his jowls onto the leaf litter as his beady rattlesnake eyes, penetrating the veil of darkness, watched the pair of two-legged, hairless mammals back away from, then skirt around the half-acre of tree ferns where he'd been feeding on his kill, his dirty yellow body partly hidden by a massive fallen log._

_Thirty feet long and built like a reptilian jaguar, the creature that would later be dubbed Carocarptor suspiciously sniffed the musky, pungent scent that drifted to his nostrils from the weird creatures. Yes, one was an adult male, while the smaller one was an adult female._

_His night vision was at least as good as a cat's, but he could also feel the weakening body heat the two vaguely birdlike mammals produced as they moved away through heat-sensing organs on his muzzle._

_His mate, younger than he and about two-thirds his size, crept up on his right side. He could see through the darkness that her body was tensed and eager to attack, even though her belly was already stuffed with the flesh of the Sylvaceratops cow she'd helped him kill just two hours before and drag to cover._

_Like wolves, Carocarptors had a strong predatory drive, and it was not uncommon for them to kill even when not actually hungry. Was it done for the estatic sense of triumph, the thrill of the kill? An instinctive, automatic response to an opportunity just too enticing to ignore? Either way, the motivation hardly mattered to the victim or the scavengers which came across the free banquet._

_The male himself had done it in the past, and would do so in the future. At another time he might've allowed his mate to indulge her bloodlust, but now he silently bared his Dimetrodon teeth and lightly lashed his long tail through the vegetation, gestures of disapproval and irritation._

_Only in her first year of sexual maturity, his youthful mate did a lot of foolish, naïve things that irritated him. Rebellious behavior, trying to butt in at kills before he was done eating, being playful when she should be serious and quiet, trying to attack completely inappropriate prey, and attacking suitable prey before he indicated the time was right._

_She was slowly learning the rules though, and glanced at him, slightly disappointed, before obediently turning and reluctantly walking back to their kill to doze, a stray pin of moonlight passing over the large, daggerlike scales that studded her spine at 2-foot intervals. After idly sniffing the airborne scent of both mammals for a few more moments, the male Carocarptor did the same._

_His original interest in them had been aroused by their close approach toward the carcass. Possessiveness flaring up within him, he'd gotten prepared to charge and maul them in defense of the hard-won meat. Now that they'd shown proper respect and gone away, he could forget about them._

* * *

The rest of Jack and Ann's detour around the stony hill was thankfully uneventful. Three times they'd laid down in a clump of small palms or the buttress roots of a tree in response to the sound of great leathery wings flapping above the canopy, but the only creatures they'd directly encountered were a river toad the size of a jewelry box and those ever-maddening mosquitoes, big and small.

Finally, Jack detected a linear patch of moonlight through the shadowy forest, and knew they were coming back to the game trail. Nerves stretched to the limit, he paused at the edge briefly, apprehensively scanning the silvered path in both directions. Seeing and hearing nothing, he led Ann out onto it, and they resumed their fugitive jogging, sometimes stopping to step over fallen logs (Jack _always _prodding at the unseen side with his club first), or skirt little piles of rocks, half-sunken in the dense clay soil.

Once, the playwright detected a mild rustling in the leaf litter on the right side of the path, and shied, going rigid as he held up a hand to warn Ann.

"Stop, stop," he harshly exhaled as Ann pressed up against his back. Whatever it was walking along didn't seem all that big, only about the size of a woodchuck from what he could hear. Of course, on this island, 'small' didn't always translate to 'harmless.'

What was it? A giant spider? A poison lizard? One of the giant crickets from the gorge?

This time though, as Jack warily held his stick at the ready, it was a far more benign creature that waddled out of the ferns, briefly stopping to regard the two humans with comically bulging brown eyes before scurrying across.

Chunky and squat, it was covered in short, woolly, burnt orange fur, with a white patch around each ear, and several random patches of white on its body. As it crossed in front of him, Jack saw a saffron yellow tail angling into the air, the tip bare and curled into a circle. It was a possum.

Amazing. One would think a possum wouldn't stand a chance in hell on an island like this.

"Just a possum," he sighed thankfully, the corners of his mouth turning slightly upwards as Ann, part charmed, part relieved, gave a chiming, low little laugh.

They pressed on.

As the river's course gradually descended, so did the trail. The terrain became less stony, flatter and softer. The path began to be pockmarked with odd puddles and areas of thin mud. Jack found himself leading Ann through an area where the trees were more open, still tall, but noticeably shorter than the giants they'd just been passing through. They were following the animal trail along the crest of a gently rounded ridge when suddenly Jack detected a long, irregularly shaped darkness in front of him and about a hundred feet off his left.

As he understood what the ebony lightening bolt in the earth meant-and probably concealed-horrible, skin-crawling memories slunk back into his mind, making Jack quiver and feel like he'd swallowed a pound of ice cubes.

It wasn't the same hellish chasm that Kong had dumped them into, where he'd fought for his life against unspeakable horrors. Yet, the playwright still felt an instinctive _wrongness_ emanating from this smaller crack in the ground, and sensed that it too, was the lair of insectile monsters.

He stopped once more.

"What's going..." Ann asked from behind him.

Mastering his fear, Jack half-turned to face her, putting a filthy finger to his lips. Shaking his head, he then turned and pointing at the chasm.

Peering over his left shoulder and taking the opportunity to switch her grip on his belt, her eyes saucered as the realization struck her, giving a whispered "Oh," of surprise and fear, putting her free hand to her delicate mouth.

Jack silently nodded.

A doleful look lowering her eyelids, his angel then leaned against him, reaching out to soothingly carress his lean cheek. It cheered him greatly, dulling the sickening memories, and he favored her with a crooked smile before whispering sternly in her ear.

"Even though we're a good distance away from this pit, something could still come jumping out at us from it or from the jungle around here at any time. So walk with me as slowly as you can manage Ann, and keep your ears open for any rustle."

She nodded grimly, lines of fear around her eyes.

Smothering the profound urge to panic at the idea of what creatures he sensed were dwelling in the gorge, fighting the impulse to run down the trail screaming in terror, the playwright warily stalked past the black slash. Like a strolling tarantula, he picked each place where his dress-shoe sheathed foot would come down with great care, he and Ann looking around hesitantly after each footfall.

He was almost certain that just like toads or octopuses, at least some of these multi-legged monsters lurked in these dark crevasses during the day and came out to hunt at night. He just hoped to Jesus that if they _did_ stumble across one, it would've already had its meal and therefore cause to ignore them.

To Jack's astonishment, while traversing those several hundred yards, no threats appeared. Nothing came scrambling out of the pit or the trees, eager to bite or crush out their lives with shearing mandibles or crushing claws. To tell the truth, he almost wished something _had _rushed at them, just to break the raw tension. The constant anticipation made both his skin and nerves feel like they'd been rubbed with coarse sandpaper.

Then, just a few minutes after passing by the far end of the chasm, as the trail came into a little clearing about 60 by 40 feet square, Ann gave a sharp, shocked little cry and plucked hard at his belt. Immediately, Jack sidled into the moon-washed long grass and shrubs on the left side of the path and crouched down on his hams with his dame, his gaze pinned to the place on the right where she'd pointed.

At first, he couldn't see a thing. But he felt a presence, that soul-withering wrongness that made his stomach clench. Then he saw a bullet-shaped form, big as a lynx, disengage itself from the top of a tall, leafy sapling, jerkily crawl a little way down the trunk headfirst, then jump to the ground with a catapult kick from two great hind legs like inverted V's, covered in thorny spines.

_Oh Jesus Christ_, Jack silently shouted in horror as he realized it was one of the Brobdanagian, man-eating crickets Jimmy had shot off him. He felt the hair on his nape and arms prickle, and he went stock-still.

Behind him, he heard Ann make a thin, anguished sound of helpless terror over his shoulder as she pressed her body tightly against his, seeking stability and strength from the contact. Jack himself began to quiver with revulsion and too-recent memories, though less intensely. An inner voice screamed, _Get out, back off, run, take Ann away from these evil things!_

But somehow, even as his esophagus expanded and contracted, the writer found the nerve to stay put, holding Ann tightly in the crook of his arm, knowing that where there was one of the damn crickets, there were others. And seconds later, three more of the abominations jerkily moved out onto the path, closer than the first.

One had just grabbed some sort of frog roughly the size and shape of an apple and was in the process of eating it, shearing the soft flesh and cracking bones in its wicked jaws. Another was following at its left side, head tilted towards its partner's, its own dreadful mandibles bared as it attempted to grab and pluck gobbets of frog from the other's mouth. The killer tried its best to dissuade the would-be thief with headbutts and sideways kicks of its hind legs as they moved out of the writer's visual field.

A third paused to drink from a shallow puddle of water in the path, the fading moonlight shining off its great black eyes. Of all the things Jack found so repulsive about the insects that would later come to be known as Weta-rexes, it was the eyes that made his intestines knot the tightest.

They were too alien and blank to ever inspire a connection, an awareness of what their owner was. These oil black voids of chitin dragged the strongest man's psyche into them like whirlpools sucking down ships. The taint of those eyes would affect Jack Driscoll so profoundly that much later in life, on seeing a sketch of a purported alien, he would shriek so hard that people from hundreds of yards away would believe he was being brutally murdered.

He wanted to scream now, vault to his feet and run for his life, and sensed that Ann felt the same way. But some residual fragment of wisdom implored him not to move. Jack had no idea what sort of senses these nasty bugs had, or how sharp they were. If his limited experience with normal insects and spiders was any indication however, they probably reacted most strongly to movement and vibration, maybe smell.

Ann was making desperate, strangled huffing noises. Her lips were pulled back in what looked like a hesitant grin, but was actually a grimace of revulsion and terror. _Whatever you do sweetheart, please don't scream or run, please don't scream or run, please don't scream or run..._ Jack silently pleaded as he squeezed her tighter to his body, even as he fought to control his own fear.

He sensed Ann was drawing a deep breath, preparing to vent the panic, and clapped one of his spacious, soiled hands over her mouth, leaving only her great blue eyes visible.

Looking into her horror-stricken eyes, he softly hissed, "I know these damn bugs are scary and disgusting as hell doll, but this is not the time to scream or run in panic. If we do, they'll be on us in seconds. You understand me? Seconds."

Through his hand, Ann gave a muffled, inarticulate, shuddering phrase.

Presuming he'd translated the gist of her feminine mumblings, Jack muttered back, "If you can't stand to look at them, then just close your eyes and keep holding on to me. Breathe easy, and only run if I tell you," he instructed.

Carefully, he removed it from her mouth, ready to replace it at the first sign of a scream. All Ann did though, was nod with clenched eyes, hanging her head as her arms, suddenly feeling so slim and weak to Jack, gripped his midsection, her cheek lightly pressed against his chest while she trembled.

There were more rustlings in the leaf litter, more scraping of claws on tree bark as more of the terrifying crickets filed out on to the path and into their side of the forest. So far, none of the monsters had noticed them-or if they had, were too full from the night's hunting to care-but that could change in a heartbeat. It was like watching a nightmare version of one of the Mormon cricket plagues out west in Utah or Nevada.

Some had thin, upcurved, bladelike structures, like small machetes, trailing from their abdomens, and what little portion of Jack Driscoll's brain was stable enough to still think academically surmised these must be females of the species, with the structures meant for laying eggs deep in the soil.

The playwright battled against the lump of panic slowly rising in his throat as he realized that despite the supreme efforts they were making to be still, one of the giant crickets would happen across them in the next ten seconds-and then he and his angel would have to come out fighting like wildcats, trying not to be overwhelmed, not to die in this unthinkable way!

Then, Jack's fear-sharpened hearing caught another sound filtering through the muggy, tropical darkness. It was a faint, squirrel-like _scritch_ of large claws on bark as something stealthily moved down the trunk of a large tree on the opposite side of the path.

Gradually raising his head, he saw another monstrosity carefully descending, even bigger than the huge crickets. It was a monumental assassin bug. Broad and deep-bodied, it was the size of a large ram and deep black in color, with a foot-wide spot of cerulean blue on each wing cover, and a red ochre head under which a wicked looking beak lay folded like a jackknife. It had to be at least five feet long.

Picking its way to a spot eight feet above the ground, facing towards the clearing, it did a slow about-face and began to wipe the tip of its abdomen back and forth over the bark in a two-foot wide semi-circle. To his astonishment, Jack realized the bug was setting a chemical lure, just like trappers used vixen scent to attract and catch foxes.

Although he couldn't smell a thing at this distance, the man-eating crickets evidently sure could, for they all stopped a few seconds later, feelers twitching. Then, although some continued on their original path, many turned on their spiky heels and eagerly began to move back towards the tree.

Bending his head towards hers, Jack felt the corner of his mouth move up in a small smile of optimistic delight and relief as he whispered, "Ann, I think we're about to get some help here. When I say 'Now,' we're going to leap up and start running as fast as we can. Don't stop for _**anything**_, you hear me?"

Raising her head, Ann opened her eyes and met his gaze with a doubtful, harried look.

"Okay," she said tightly.

The muscles of his calves and thighs as primed to explode into action as those of a runner on the starting line, Jack watched the grotesquely huge assassin bug turn around in a slow circle, returning to its previous head-down posture. A female flesh-eating cricket was the first to reach the tree, her bladelike ovipositor trailing as she excitedly scuttled up the trunk.

When she got to the crescent of scent the assassin bug had put down, she began to eagerly lick and nip at it. "Wait," Jack cautioned. Their timing had to be just right. "Wait."

Suspended above its oblivious victim, the bug then reared up slightly and curled its abdomen forward. Now all the massive crickets had moved away from their proximity.

The playwright then saw a small globe of clear fluid appear at the tip of the bug's abdomen, about as big as a baseball. The female devil-insect clearly found its smell or taste very attractive, for she pressed herself against the bark and strained forward between her killer's legs to lick at it. As she did so, the spiny horror bared her nape-placing herself in the perfect posture for her own execution.

The assassin bug accepted, flicking out its beak and stabbing the huge cricket deep in the back of her neck, injecting venom and sucking out her liquefying insides. As the Weta-rex died, her struggles and alarm pheromones brought the other hungry members of her swarm scrambling over even faster now, eager for a cannibal feast.

As four of them piled onto her limp body, pulling and gnawing, Jack leapt to his feet like a gymnast, yelling "Now Ann, now!" With a fluid grace befitting her trim body, Ann also sprung erect. Grabbing her right arm, Jack wasted no time in propelling her down the path, their legs churning like windmill blades.

Out of the corner of his right eye, Jack saw the assassin bug release its first victim before lunging to grab and pierce a second member of the swarm through the neck. The corpse of the slain female Weta-rex tumbled to the ground, where the jaws of others carved out chunks of her drained flesh with the obscene enthusiasm of the vultures in the Pridelands.

In a way, the playwright felt almost sorry and disappointed to be leaving the assassin bug behind. For that minute or two, it was like they'd found an unexpected ally in these jungles. It was pretty difficult to tow a Merino sheep-sized bug with a folding, venom-injecting beak along with you and make it do your bidding though, to say the least.

Distracted by the scent lure and the corpses of their dead, and not expecting two humans to come exploding out of the brush, those abomidably huge crickets which hadn't gotten a good dinner in were taken completely off guard, and both New Yorkers maneuvered through them with ease.

Racing every bit as much _**away**_ from such horrors as towards the Venture, prodded by a deep, atavistic fear and disgust, an exhausted Jack and Ann only drew to a halt, sides burning, sweat stinging their eyes, when they realized the track was now beginning to lead them east.

By now the sky was turning from a deep, rich blue-purple to a red-orange, the air whitening around them. Jack could hear the voices of parrots, drongos and sunbirds, swallows, kingfishers and weaverbirds, finches, barbets, crows and fruit doves, all mingling together in a jubilant, uplifting chorus to the rising tropical sun.

The sun's reappearance and the songs of the birds were a needed balm to the playwright's spirits. Now they could better see and avoid danger, get a better sense of where they were headed.

But Jack also knew that getting too complacent was a fatal mistake on this island. With the dawn came a whole new retinue of beasts that would be all too happy to have him or Ann for breakfast. Even worse, if _they_ could see the terrain and detect movement during the day much more easily, so could Kong.

He could almost _feel_ the huge ape picking up the pace.

As if psychically receiving his thoughts, Ann said as they caught their respective breath, "We haven't heard any sign of him for a while, have we?"

"And I sure hope it stays that way," Jack replied grimly.

"Maybe he's given up," Ann optimistically ventured. "Maybe he's lost our trail or decided to quit searching."

"I never did," Jack knowingly said, giving her a meaningful glance before peering into the forest, raking it from crown to ground for any potential threats before they entered. "He won't either."

"That's exactly what I'm scared of Jack," Ann muttered, clasping him in her arms and pressing her sleek, curved brow into the hollow of his throat, voice shaky. "He'll kill you, you know it and I know it, you've got to promise me..."

A smoke cloud of contempt, indignation, possessiveness and protectiveness ballooned inside Jack's ribcage as his muscles stiffened, jaw clenching. He saw Ann raise her angelic head and look up at him in surprise before he tightly grasped her upper arms and slowly but firmly pushed her back to arm's length.

Mouth agape, Ann shrank back even further from his glowering, heated stare as she said, "Jack, what-"

"I am _not_ some milquetoast, Ann Darrow," he icily rasped. "Not anymore."

Cowed by his indignation, she shifted uneasily, fidgeting. A lavender colored damselfly, almost as long as Jack's hand and striped with black, buzzed up to passively hover nearby.

"I know you aren't," she said softly.

"Then quit asking me to behave like one."

Shame-and helplessness-flooded Ann's delicate, doll-like features as she turned her head to the side.

"Now, let me ask you this: would _you_ run off on _me_ if the ape finds us, snatches me, and starts ripping my limbs off one by one like he did with the bat creatures? Or decides to see how deep of an imprint he can make in the dirt with my body as a pattern? Look me in the eyes when I'm speaking to you, goddamn it!" he snapped, reaching out with his left hand to grab Ann's upper arm and shake her.

"I've had enough of this evasive bullshit already from Rafiki and Scar and Carl. I don't need it from you! Look me in the eyes and vow that you'll make tracks if he's killing me. I don't want you watching me die. Run away and hide and close your eyes and shove your fingers in your ears Ann. I'll do my best not to scream too loudly so you won't have to hear. Maybe we'll both get lucky, and he'll just crush some ribs and tear my head off first."

Ann gaped at him in supreme, horrified shock. Smeared with dirt, her pale hands swooped up to her face, tears shining above her lower eyelids as she clapped them over her mouth and shook her head wildly. As if reacting to the writer's awful words itself, the giant damselfly put on a turn of speed and bolted away through the reddening air.

"I couldn't bring myself to," she whimpered.

"I didn't think so either," Jack coolly huffed. "Now let's go."

Closing her eyes, Ann's trim ribcage expanded as she took a deep breath before opening them again and meeting his. Something in her meek demeanor made Jack feel guilty about his harsh words, necessary as they might've been, and he sighed.

"I'm sorry Ann," he told her, voice reverting to its slightly nasal drone. "I'm not really angry with you. If I'm furious with anyone, it's Rafiki for doing this to us."

"I know," she gently assured him. "And I understand what you're saying," she added, stepping forward to place her hands on his flanks, eyes strong and limpid at once. "We're both in this together."

He nodded in satisfied agreement. Taking her head in his hands, he slipped his soiled fingers through her soft curls as he tilted his head and kissed her, for what could possibly be the last time.

"Whatever happens to me," he whispered tenderly, stroking her left cheek with the back of his hand, "always know that I'm proud of you. So very proud," he smiled. Ann favored him with a wide, Mona Lisa smile of her own.

The distant, baritone roar of some creature abruptly shattered the brief spell and yanked both New Yorkers back to their dreadful reality.

All business once more, Jack pointed into the jungle, saying "The valley's opened out quite a bit now, and this game trail is starting to lead us away from where we want to be headed. So we'll have to just take our chances and cut through this mass of jungle. You ready?"

"More than ready," Ann replied, briefly looking over her shoulder in the direction of Kong's mountain.

The vegetation on the edge of the path was the biggest bother, and Jack would've given anything for a machete or Bowie knife as he painfully broke a path for Ann, the thorns and saw-toothed leaf margins scratching him bloody.

Once in the sun-dappled cathedral of the jungle proper though, the dawn melody of the birds throbbing in the canopy and understory, the going was comparatively much easier, the playwright using his arms and club to part ferns and small palms in a classic jungle adventure cliché.

A new ensemble of insect singers replaced those that were active by night. Cicadas, crickets, katydids, beetles-all combined to give the still air and climbing heat a voice. To the playwright's paranoid mind, it also seemed like the voice of the island itself, a thin, screeching growl of hatred directed at them, promising gruesome death.

And Jack didn't doubt there were all sorts of diurnal hunters coming out of Skull Island's woodwork at that very moment, every one of them more than happy to do just that. He was so stressed and exhausted and confused.

They walked and divided the responsibility of keeping watch for danger as before, Jack focused on what lay ahead or to the sides. So it was that he first saw, screened by the stocky, vine-wrapped trees, the winding barrier of rocks lying in their path. As they drew closer, Jack saw that it was an 8-foot high esker of boulders, their contours rounded by decades of rain. Lichens and moss covered the stones, and bushes or saplings grew from some of the spaces between them.

It struck him that like the massive wall, this high row of boulders had also been made and shaped by human hands. Was it stones that had been removed from a large field to grow crops? Was it a long disused, smaller defensive wall? Was it part of an ancient religious site, similar to those in Britain or Scotland?

Jack swiftly dismissed it. They didn't have the luxury to stop and contemplate or examine every single strange thing they came across. They'd never get out alive if they did that.

The only significance this row of stones had for him now was that it was both yet another obstacle to be dealt with and a very encouraging sign that he and Ann were still headed in the right direction.

"Looks like we're still on course at least," Ann commented from behind his shoulders.

"Yeah, and that sure is a good thing," he replied. "But now we've got to get over this."

As they approached the base of the barrier, Jack looked up at the crest of it. Picking up a stone, he took a pitcher's stance, pulling his arm back before letting fly, the stone sailing over the crest to land on the other side. Other than the sound of its impact, he heard nothing else move.

So, after tucking the thin end of his club and Ann's under his belt on each side, he reached out and climbed the moss spackled rocks with the slow, deliberate movements and manner of a treefrog, Ann just behind. Each time he placed his hand down, he expected the sharp pain of some disgusting bug or snake clamping down on his fingers. Yet he willed himself on, and in no time they found themselves standing on top of the wall of boulders.

After raking the forest in every direction with his gaze, peering as far through the foliage as he could, Jack extended his spacious hand to Ann, who took it before they bounded down the other side together. After catching their breath, they began to walk away, dripping with sweat from the activity.

Suddenly, a birdlike bleating slashed through the air, just thirty feet off to Jack's left. It was a cry of distress, full of hurting and terror, like the sound of a baby.

On the instant, Jack whipped around in tandem with Ann, taking a defensive stance as he snatched his club from his belt and held it like a baseball bat, heart leaping up into his mouth as he stared intently.

The screeching creature, thrashing on its side in the leaf litter, was a young mouse deer, orange-buff in color and the size of a large cottontail rabbit. Curled around the delicate animal, biting deep into its rump with a pair of sickle fangs, was a revoltingly huge centipede, a yard long and glossy brown-black in color. A vile, disgusting monster.

Jack didn't know if it was the civilized part of him that was angered by witnessing such an innocent, gentle, helpless creature being murdered by this demon, or the part of him that just didn't like giant centipedes, or just that the constant sneaking around and expectation of a grisly death had gotten on his nerves so severely that a spasm of violence was now the only way to attain a measure of relief. But he was suddenly filled with seething fury and hatred.

The anger struck him like a blow to the head from a 2 by 4. It was instantaneous and savage. Their current, all-important, number one objective was to hide their heads and make tracks back to the village as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. But all of a sudden, Jack Driscoll didn't want to be unobtrusive any more.

He wanted to see what his club was capable of. He deeply wanted to punish and hurt the yard-long centipede.

"I'm going to kill that vile escapee from a nightmare," he snapped savagely, lunging forward.

Astonished, Ann flashed around, eyes saucering as she exclaimed, "_What? _This is no time to play avenging angel Jack! Leave it!"

The playwright begged to differ as he charged the centipede, which was now eagerly gnawing at its prey, all but dead from the venom. When he arrived, he whacked the surprised horror again and again with the crude club. He stabbed and jackhammered it with the broken end, the polished exoskeleton buckling to reveal orange-white innards as the centipede thrashed in distress like a snake, trying to bite Jack with its terrible fangs.

Each time the bug tried to do that, Jack, never missing a beat, gave it either the club to bite or smashed its head away like a baseball.

Then Ann was grabbing him by the back of his shirt and trouser waist, yanking him to her, fiercely commanding him, "You stop it Jack, this instant!"

Quick as a cat, seething with primal fury, he spun around and almost slapped her across the face with all his might. He was that angry. He even drew back and cocked his arm in preparation for the blow.

But Ann, bless her, stood firm, hands held palm out as she attempted to talk reason into him. "Listen to me Jack. I can see you're very mad. You have every right to be mad. But this is not the time or the place, at all. The fella you're mad at is beyond your reach. You can't get back at Rafiki for tricking us and sending us back here."

The centipede was now laboriously crawling away, body broken and oozing, mortally wounded.

Somehow her wise, reasonable words pierced through the red-black sack of rage that had swallowed him up. No, neither one of them could do anything to hurt or get back at Rafiki. And it was ultimately him Jack Driscoll was furious with, wasn't it? Ann was right.

It was all Rafiki's fault in the end, not the centipede's.

"For the love of God, Jack, why did you do that?" Ann said as she looked at the dead mouse deer, then the centipede crawling off to die.

Jack was astonished. "Are you saying you actually feel pity for that horrible thing? It was a murderer, a horror not fit to share this planet with us! So I killed it."

"Why?" Ann replied, her brows knitting quizzically. "It wasn't attacking _us_."

At that reminder, the playwright deflated, feeling rather silly and sheepish all of a sudden.

"It had its meal and was starting to eat it," Ann went on sternly, matter-of-factly. "But you had to go take a poke at it, and risk getting bitten by the thing or worse, attracting dangerous animals with all that commotion!"

"I'm really sorry," he said, ashamed, silently cursing himself.

Ann just sighed, closing her eyes and putting a delicate, thin hand over her face. "Just get us off this island Jack. Don't do any more dumb things that could get us both killed because you're mad at Rafiki, okay?"

"I won't," he promised. "You're right, let's just get the hell out of here without attracting more attention than we can help."

* * *

**Anyone who's seen the movie should know all too well what the Weta-Rexes are. The assassin bug is my own creation, partly because I couldn't resist the idea of there being at least _one_ creature on the island capable of turning the tables on those vile things. The possum too, is also a product of my brain. Since Skull Island is clearly a very old landmass, and fairly close to Australasia, it makes sense that it would be home to at least a scattering of native marsupials.**

**The giant centipede Jack takes on is featured in both TWoK and the scene where Ann hides in the hollow log. The unfortunate Greater mouse deer is a real species from Southeast Asia and Indonesia. These gentle and charming animals are often kept as pets by local people, and it's not impossible that some might've been brought to Skull Island in the past, where they then gave rise to a feral population.**

**The Carocarptor, or "Flesh-Carver," is featured only in TWoK, which I feel was a real shame. **

**Practice the 2 R's, if you'd be so kind. ;)**


	41. The Treetop Hunters and the Crossing

**My, my, am I ever churning these chapters out now! This will be the last chapter before Ann and Jack and Kong all get back to the village...and the SAD things happen. :(**

* * *

"The jungle was high and the jungle was broad and the jungle was the entire world forever and forever." Ray Bradbury, _A Sound of Thunder_, 1952.

"With every encounter, I became more convinced that this forest, empty of humans, is not empty of intelligence of various sorts...Still, the presence of intelligence in the forest does not necessarily mean it is a friendly place." Eugene Linden, _The Parrot's Lament, _1999.

"Suddenly he saw, too, that there were spiders huge and horrible sitting in the branches above him, and ring or no ring he trembled with fear..." John R. R. Tolkien, _The Hobbit_, 1937.

"'...I should go now. In fact, I think you'll have to.' 'Why?' asked Hazel. 'There's a large dog loose in the wood.'" Richard Adams, _Watership Down, _1973.

After the terror and fearful expectations of the Skull Island light, Ann couldn't help feeling a sense of optimism returning with the sunlight filtering through the trees. Still, she was very much a bundle of nerves.

Jack's misguided little dustup with the centipede had made her especially tense over the past ten minutes. But nothing had evidently been attracted by the disturbance, and she began to relax as much as she prudently could as she kept her fingers curled over his pant waist.

Although the sun hadn't even fully cleared the horizon yet, some members of the island's day shift were clearly wasting no time in beginning their morning. A gorgeous yellow and black butterfly, its fuzzy body thick as her pinky finger, flew over their heads, and Jack flushed another, more normal sized butterfly off the leaf litter a couple minutes later, its wings an iridescent, stained-glass purple.

Scurrying on tree trunks and leaping gaps between branches were various, weird gliding lizards of different species, most no more then 10 inches long and as common as anoles in the Carolinas or Georgia. Depending on the variety, they had their ribs, the skin between their toes, along their limbs, or on the back of their tail modified into an airfoil. One blue and white species, producing shrill gecko barks in the still air, even had what looked like stiff feathers on its forelimbs and shoulders!

Having already seen plenty of the reptiles during their first respective trips into the island's interior, both Jack and Ann knew the little gliders were harmless as kittens, and so ignored them.

Instead, like a rooster pheasant walking through a field, like a driver about to go through an intersection, Jack's head constantly turned left and right as they traveled through the forest, his eyes piercing the maze of tree trunks, saplings, and vines.

Ann too, attentively raked the tiers of branches above them with her gaze for movement, a patch of scales or hair, anything that might leap down at them. She also kept her ears very wide indeed to listen for any sounds coming from behind.

From every point of the compass, she heard the squawks, chirps, whistles, screeches and buzzes of unknown creatures. Somewhere to the northwest, there was a deep, sonorous, bass sound, like the one a rookie at playing the bassoon might make. She also heard the cringe-inducing roar of one of the mavolently grinning Tyrannosaurus-type dinosaurs Kong had so courageously battled to save her-thankfully a good distance to the north.

But no sound was coming from the great ape's throat at the moment.

The actress looked over her slim shoulder every several seconds to make doubly sure nothing was creeping up from behind. Two months had done little to dull the memory of how she'd watched the one huge flesh-eater wander off from her hiding place on the jutting log, warily starting to feel relieved and confident...and then realized with a burst of supreme horror that its partner was _**right there**_.

After spending over fifteen years living and working in parts of New York that didn't exactly have the safest reputation, Ann had learned very early on to always pay attention to her surroundings. Her naturally large eyes also made her adept at discerning movement and details.

So it was no surprise that she first detected the movement in the canopy. It was a bounce of a branch, a hissing crash of leaves a little over thirty yards away and sixty feet above their heads.

At once, she jerked at Jack's belt and pointed to the right. Now she could hear that there was a group of creatures leaping through the trees, and the wheezing whistles and weak yelps they used to communicate with each other.

About twenty-five feet to their left was a true forest giant, a magnificent tree at least sixteen feet thick, supported by buttress roots that flared out like the spokes of a wheel and the size of sails.

Wasting no time, Jack flung out his free hand and latched onto her forearm with a fierce, iron grip. Going into a scrambling jog, he tugged her to the tree and lightly pushed her into the space between two buttress roots, where she apprehensively got down on her haunches. Jack then did the same, club at the ready as he squatted in front of her.

Over the past two months, Ann Darrow had seen and experienced mind-boggling wonders, some delightful, some horrible. To tell the truth, she'd actually managed to become _inured_ to the bizarre and grotesque.

All the same, the creatures that now came into view still counted as a new surprise. Even by her radically altered standards of reality, they were like nothing she'd ever seen, or could've ever even imagined.

They were a meter long, the size of house cats or capuchin monkeys, and a long, stiff tail stuck out behind them. And like monkeys, they leaped from branch to branch.

But they weren't built like monkeys at all. They were dinosaurs, tree living dinosaurs that didn't just jump between the layers of branches and the tree trunks, but _**glided**_ like flying squirrels!

"You've got to be kidding me," Jack whispered in astonishment. "They're like Archaeopteryx for cripes sake."

The name triggered a long buried memory in Ann's brain, the image of a painting in a book or encyclopedia volume, a rendering of a grinning creature with spread-eagled wings, part bird and part lizard.

And they _did_ look a great deal like that fabled first bird! But not quite. Not by any means!

As the dinosaurs came closer, she could see that they glided on not two, but **four **wings! The first pair was composed of the arms. Ending in dexterous, three-fingered hands, tipped by silver claws sharp as needles, two different layers of feathers flared out behind the gracile limbs, no different from the feather arrangement on the wings of the pigeons or ducks roaming Central Park.

But no pigeon or any other bird Ann had ever seen had the same large feathers running along the inner surface of its thighs and legs as well. Angling out from the rear half of each reptile's tail, long as the rest of the creature and stiff as a lampost, was an additional fan of feathers half as long as those on the limbs, roughly forming a diamond shape.

Whenever the gliding dinosaurs sprung into the air, they half-tucked their legs into the feathers of their belly, like a hawk, and extended their arms to the sides, using both sets of feathers to swoop through the air with absolute grace and assurance as they waved their tails about like rudders. Evidently they served as very effective rudders too, for Ann saw one turn away from its intended landing site-in midair!-to grab and bolt down a katydid it had spied on another branch.

Just before landing, they stretched out their wiry legs and arms to take the impact, digging into the bark with their hand claws and wrapping their trio of long, saffron toes firmly around a sturdy branch.

Ann had seen flying squirrels before, both at the zoo and on summer nights outside the city, and marveled at their aerial skills.

As terrified as she was of what the approaching dinosaurs could-might-would do to her or Jack, a part of her couldn't help but notice that they displayed every bit as much speed and confidence as they moved and glided toward them through the branches. They were weird and utterly alien to _their_ eyes, but in the eyes of the forest they were beings that did what they did and did it...beautifully.

And it wasn't just their extraordinary style of getting around that was alluring. So far, all the large reptiles she and Jack had seen on this island had been rather nondescript in color. These _feathered_ dinosaurs however, were far from plain, to say the least.

With the exception of their muzzles, covered in slaty blue scales mottled with black, and their straw yellow feet and hands, the bodies of the dinosaurs were covered in sleek, mid-length, hairlike quills. The first ones Ann was able to see clearly were a vivid green in color, the green of new spring grass. Their heads and sinuous necks were bright golden orange, with cheek patches of amethyst purple, a black and nearly glowing fuschia neck ring separating the warm colors from the cool. On their backs were sapphire blue feathers, scalloped with bright yellow, while both sets of "wings" were green with black barring, similar to a blue jay's, the tips of the longest feathers colored with more sapphire blue. The diamond shaped tail rudder was a vivid scarlet, and around each orange, forward-facing eye was a bare ring of turquoise skin.

At the head of the pack, these individuals were the first to arrive on the scene, the wheezing whistles and noncommittal yelps now quite loud in Ann's ears as they took up positions in the branches and saplings directly around and above them. They descended either by gliding or shimmying down the tree trunks like firemen.

Ann felt her arms slowly levering up into the air, the fingers of both her shapely hands forcefully gripping the handle of her own club, tensely waiting for the dinosaurs to lunge at them at any moment, to feel their claws in her flesh.

"Keep still," Jack murmured, even as he held his own club in a batter's stance.

"I don't think it matters at this point," Ann despondently replied.

They were dead people. But she privately knew they'd become the living dead since the moment they'd so innocently set foot on this horrible, hellish island, just like a frog is dead the moment a bass engulfs it. It struggles against the muscular walls of the fish's throat and stomatch, it paws and kicks and bucks, tries to breathe, but it's dead, sure as anything.

But the gliding feathered dinosaurs made no hostile moves, at least not yet.

Now that the dinosaurs were up close, Ann realized to her alarm that they had a wickedly curved sickle claw on each inner toe, just like the bigger, grizzly bear-sized hunters Jack had told her about. They also had a set of long, thin teeth, like short cutlass blades, that formed a creepy sort of leer. It made the creatures look irresistibly cute and awfully chilling all at once.

With tails held up in the air, their orange eyes and scaly visages seemed almost personable, friendly, the way they craned and twisted their serpent necks, large eyes coolly quizzical.

Now more of the feathered dinosaurs showed up. These were noticeably larger than the others by about a quarter, and moved through the branches with greater care, but still with just as much finesse and agility. Their heads and necks were a deep, hyacinth purple in color, as well as the skin around their eyes. Their tail fans were smaller, and green instead of red. Silver spots spangled their plumage like diamonds.

They too, dropped and climbed lower to look Ann and her boyfriend over. Ann noted that three of these later arrivals had distended bellies, and she guessed that they were females of the species, carrying eggs. The troop, fourteen animals in all, were now scrutinizing them from just seven feet away, occasionally rustling their feathers, shifting in place, or giving a thin whistle of comment.

Aware that hiding was of no more use, Jack give a resigned, fortifying intake of breath as he stood erect and brandished his club. He turned his head slightly to the right, flashing a grim, sidelong, meaningful glance, and Ann stood erect too, ready to wield her own weapon in what would likely be their last battle.

Some of the feathered dinosaurs retreated a slight distance as they stood. Others held their ground, bobbing their heads and bouncing up and down in place. They were all equally excited.

_Oh Goodness, this is it_, Ann thought, goosebumps breaking out all over her as time seemed to stop. Now that the gang was all here, the gaudily plumed hunters were going to set upon them any moment, biting and tearing as they both tried to beat them back.

She'd chastised Jack for going crazy on the centipede, for losing control of his seething anger and submitting to a burst of violence. Now she dearly hoped his stored rage hadn't all totally dissipated.

And indeed, Jack then harshly snapped in defiant challenge, "Come on, you devil-birds! I'd like to see you try it! Come get me!"

_At least we've chosen a pretty good place to make a stand_, a part Ann thought weakly. A last stand. _My God, don't you think like that!_

The plumed reptiles were listening to their breathing, watching their eyes dart about, seeing their ribs move, and they were very interested, but uncertain about what to make of these new creatures or what to do next.

Tense as a violin string, an eerie memory resurfaced in Ann's mind, as the head of a rising seal presses up against, then leisurely slips up and through the gray surface of the sea. It was the memory of what it had been like at the waterhole in the Pridelands, with dozens and dozens of unnaturally intelligent animals staring, wondering, gawking at her and Jack, as strange to them as they were to her.

Again she felt that same queer sense of communion with the gliding dinosaurs, just like she had with Kong. It was the sensation of being under psychological siege as they were inspected, fathomed by other intelligent minds. But they weren't truly prisoners.

The hair on her nape lowered again, and Ann felt her heartbeat become more regular, the adrenaline drain from her blood vessels as she leaned forward and whispered in Jack's ear, the scent of his sweat and testosterone filling her nostrils, "It's okay Jack. I don't think they mean us any harm."

"How do you know that?" he grumbled back. "Look at their claws and teeth!"

"I can see them," she acknowledged. "But if they wanted to attack, they would've done it by now already. We're just a puzzle to them, a mystery that they're trying to figure out."

His gaze roving in an arc, briefly locking eyes with several members of the troop, Jack thoughtfully nodded, saying "You just may be right. Trouble is, who knows how they'll react if we try to continue on our merry way?"

There was an uncertain silence for a minute as they both looked at each other, then the rainbow-plumed dinosaurs.

"Well, there's nothing for it," Jack pronounced at last. "But let me test the waters first."

Ann nodded in understanding, and stood still, slightly nervous as he took a few slow, unhurried strides out into the gloomy forest, eyes trained on the arboreal dinosaurs. The troop produced an excited series of loud coos, whistles, and thin yelps at the tenetative motions, but made no move to retreat or attack. Only those dinosaurs directly in his path moved, backing off a few yards or bounding a few feet higher into the branches.

Satisfied that they posed no danger, Ann saw him turn and gesture to her. She followed, and they continued struggling through the sopping forest, the fascinated gliding dinosaurs now forming a surreal entourage that stayed close above and behind them in the branches, communicating among themselves all the while.

If it wasn't for the fact that they had to keep silent at all costs, Ann would've laughed out loud. It was like they were celebrities or the Pied Piper, for gosh sakes! Sometimes one of the creatures would come very close and twist its neck to meet Ann's eyes again. A humbling, extraordinary feeling surged anew in Ann at those moments. It was as if the dinosaur was saying with its eyes, _Who __are__ you? What are you?_ _What can you teach me, and I teach you?_

It was if the island itself was giving them a parting message, reminding them that yes, it was home to unspeakable, unimaginable horrors, but also contained great wonders and beauty too, even other intelligences.

The four-winged dinosaurs had one more astounding surprise to reveal as they trailed her and Jack, their whistles resounding in the wet-basement smelling air. At one point, they came across yet another dead tree sprawled on the decaying leaves. Under its midsection was a shallow hollow.

Carefully, Jack squatted down and jabbed his stick into the mixture of leaves and bark filling the hollow. Seconds later, like a whiplash, a legless lizard, covered in rufous scales and about a foot long, came shooting out as Jack jerked back, rapidly slithering along their side of the log, probing for a hiding place. It never found one.

One of the male gliders automatically speared straight down from the branches, a killer dressed in Joseph's coat of many colors. He pounced on the legless lizard like an owl grabbing a mouse, sending up a puff of rotting leaves. Grabbing the thrashing lizard near the head and securing its body with his agile pitchfork hands, he then moved his catch closer to the back of his mouth and began to champ his jaws in a slow, deliberate fashion, like a man chewing an almond.

Within seconds, the lizard's flailing grew weaker, then it hung limp. As the predator then scurried, catlike, up a tree trunk to eat its prey, others gathering around to get a share, the realization struck them both at the same time.

"I can't believe it," Ann goggled. "These dinosaurs are actually poisonous!"

"Like a Gila monster," Jack agreed in awe. "That's truly incredible. Who could've ever guessed?"

"Good thing they're not biting _us_."

After several more minutes, the gliding tree hunters began to display ominous behavior. As Jack led her into a different, denser, part of the forest, the curious dinosaurs suddenly became distinctly uneasy. The three females packed with eggs came to a halt first, blinking and cocking their heads before turning and bounding away through the branches. Then the other females followed suit. The males followed her and Jack for several more yards, torn between curiosity and nervousness, then themselves turned away to leave, rainbows of color leaping and soaring away through the branches.

Their actions made Ann very ill at ease herself, and she scanned the jungle, pressing herself against Jack as she whispered, "What do you think got them so spooked?"

"Don't know," Jack answered. "Maybe they just got bored with us and decided to wander off."

But she knew better, and could tell from the tone of his voice that he knew better too.

Here the air felt constricting, like a garment you could wear, smelling of death and decay and mildew. The trees seemed as tall and thick as small skyscrapers, the foliage of their leafy crowns shadowing the ground in a deep gloom.

They trode onward for a few more minutes. With every step, Ann felt her flesh crawl a little bit more intensely.

Then, Jack suddenly jerked to a stop, planting his feet and turning his head back and forth. She could see the hair standing on the back of his neck.

"What's wrong?"

"Shhh..." Jack hushed her.

Pressing the front of her body against his back, her left hand draped over his shoulder, Ann joined him in looking around.

"I don't know," Jack said at last, "but something's out there. Something nasty."

The realization blossomed inside Ann, and she whispered, inwardly cringing, "It's like a ghost town here. Like the Elephant Graveyard."

"Yes," Jack agreed, never taking his eyes off the gloomy shadows as he slowly, mechanically nodded. "That's exactly what it's like."

Breathing in deeply, he exhaled forcefully, saying, "Let's keep going and get out of this place. We should be seeing the wall shortly now."

Again, Ann was teased by an uneasy feeling that there was something nearby, something that even by the standards of Skull Island was twisted, insane, and just plain wrong.

After picking their way across the jungle floor and its obstacles for another 400 yards, they struck another game trail, narrower than the first. Leading due south, they followed it for a couple minutes. Then, as Jack stood atop a fallen log in the path, he stopped, staring intently at something on the ground in front of him. His slightly hunched posture and Semitic nose made him look like a bird of prey at that moment, a part of Ann thought.

"What in the world is that?" he muttered.

Joining him on his perch, Ann followed his gaze thoughtfully. Just four feet in front of them was a compressed, mashed bundle of what seemed like whitish string, tightly wrapped around some irregular assortment of objects. It probably weighed about the size of a smaller breed of dog, like a beagle.

"Huh, that sure is odd," Ann commented.

"I've had all the oddness I can stand for this lifetime."

Jack curiously poked at it a few times with his club, and then shrugged, clearly as much at a loss for what the bundle might be as she was.

"We've got to keep moving," he said, stepping off the log and then over the clump. "If we stopped to investigate every weird thing we came across, we'd never reach the Venture. Plus, we can't let ourselves get distracted with all these bloodthirsty monsters around."

They kept on down the game trail, Ann feeling the mud squelch pleasurably underneath her sore, abraded feet, Jack whacking the odd branch out of the way or holding it back for her.

Then he stopped again, voice soft and perplexed as he said, "There's another one here."

Pressed against his back, Ann stood on tiptoe to look over his shoulder. And indeed, there was another one of the strange bundles of string. This one looked like it had thin leaves mixed in with it, and pale sticks protruding here and there from it.

As they drew closer, Jack leaned over the object, scrutinizing it before raising his head, looking intently down the trail. Three dozen feet away was another of the mysterious bundles, pale sticks jutting out of that one as well, and containing what seemed like portions of footballs.

"My God," Jack softly muttered. "These things are like huge owl pellets."

Tilting her body to the right to get a better look, holding onto Jack's left flank with her left arm, Ann realized to her horror that the leaves were actually _feathers_, and the so-called sticks were partly digested rib and limb bones, stripped of flesh.

"I don't like the looks of this," Jack said hurriedly, his gaze snapping upward to suspiciously, warily inspect the branches above. "We should turn around this instant and either backtrack or make a major detour."

And he began to do just that, turning and lightly prodding her backward, touching her breastbone with the heels of his hands, growing ever more harried. As she backpedaled, preparing to turn on her heels and break into a jog, looking forward to getting away from this particularly spooky patch of jungle, her ears picked up the sound of footfalls on leaves behind her, of creatures pecking at the ground like turkeys.

Jack heard it too, and tensed, going stone still.

Slowly, slowly turning around, Ann moved her head in a slow semi-circle, trying to get a fix on the sounds. There were several creatures, coming through the forest at an angle to the path and moving in a loose group, one larger than the others. Then she saw it.

"There it is!" she whispered loudly, pointing at the creature.

And then it came into full view, stepping out of a clump of palms and into the path. It was a little smaller than an ostrich and with its large eyes, long swiveling neck, and slim, powerful legs, looked very like one too. And like the gliding dinosaurs, it even had feathers!

Instead of wings though, this dinosaur had two long arms, tipped with three fingers of equal length, like the tines of a pitchfork. And its feathers were short and thin, somewhat like much shorter versions of emu feathers, rather than the ruffled, sagging long black or brown plumes of an ostrich.

Onto the track now came five more of the dinosaurs, two-thirds the size of the first one, and Ann realized that they were looking at a mother with young. Like their mother, they had bay feathers covering their bodies, thighs, most of their necks, and tails. Their lower legs and heads of the ostrich dinos were a pale chocolate brown, with a wide golden bar along the top of their hindquarters and lower back, from which more golden stripes speared down quite attractively, ending two-thirds of the way down their sides. Around her long ankles, the hen had a thick band of blue-gray scales, which her chicks did not. Underneath their lower jaws were small, orange pouches of skin.

With the alert senses of any wild creature tending to young, the ostrich dino hen almost immediately spotted them with her great tan eyes. Recoiling, her eyes locked on Ann and Jack, she opened her tawny beak and gave a sort of grating grunt of alarm, like a deeper version of the sound produced by running a fingernail down the teeth of a comb.

Her chicks instantly got behind their dam, and Ann felt her own heart leap up into her throat as the hen crouched and held out her arms, ready to give a raking swipe or stinging jab with her handclaws. The mother dinosaur also pawed the dirt with one of her powerful, three-toed feet, like an angry bull.

Ann needed no prompting from Jack. Tentatively, she joined him in taking a slow stride backward, not in the direction of whatever horror had produced those packets, but off the right side of the path, into the jungle.

They had no quarrel with the ostrich dinos, and Ann knew enough about the animal world to appreciate that just like with human mothers, you didn't cross a mother with babies. They were just two different families, one respectfully letting the other pass.

Still, she never took her eyes off the hen, the actresses' breathing clipped and labored as they backed, yard by yard, into the forest. The dinosaur watching them didn't seem dangerous, just protective. But Ann knew too well from her childhood that ostriches had a mean streak to them, and this dinosaur could well share that. She had those claws on her feet for a reason.

As they backed away though, the hen became more relaxed. The hackles on her back lowered down to half-mast, and her posture became more casual.

Sensing the change in their mother, the large chicks came out from behind and continued down the path, each pausing for a few moments to curiously stare at the humans before moving on. As for the mother, she parked herself on the path directly across from Ann and Jack like a crossing guard, cocking her head and blinking her large eyes.

Ann had the impression that not only was the dinosaur keeping a close eye on them until her children had passed, but she too, was trying to fathom what they were.

Then, suddenly, all the chicks stopped in their tracks. The feathers on their shoulders too, now went vertical, and five slim heads rotated up and sideways to eyeball something in the boughs above. Their mother did the same, and then gave a terrified, kettle drum boom to call her chicks to her as she flashed around, racing into the jungle on the opposite side of the path from Ann like the hounds of hell were after her and her family.

The hen's warning came too late.

Something like a gigantic, wheat-colored zucchini came plummeting down from the green-black depths of the jungle canopy to land on the second ostrich dino chick in line like a ton of bricks, throwing it to the ground as its siblings scattered in panic.

Frozen in horror and surprise, Ann and Jack could only watch, jaws loose, as the identity of the cylindrical form, eleven feet from the tips of its back pair of legs to the tips of its front, registered with them at last.

Eight impossibly long, stiff wiry black legs, covered in firm bristles, tightened around the young dinosaur, the first four pressing the flailing, kicking ostrich dino into the bare mud. It mooed like a cow and tried to bite its arachnid attacker, but even its long neck couldn't twist back far enough.

Stupified with terror, Ann saw the sunlight glinting off eight blank, black, glittering soulless eyes, dotted in a hideous pattern above a yawning pair of caliper jaws tipped with meathook fangs. She swore she could see herself and Jack, looking like a pair of deer caught in a car's headlights, mirrored in those all-seeing eyes, seeming to look into a different, darker universe.

As the terrified dinosaur thrashed its legs in the dirt, lying on its side like a shot duck sprawled on the ice, the spider skillfully snagged the chick's legs and pinned them against its tail with its third and fourth pair of legs, keeping the arms clamped against the chest with the tips of its first. Working with the speed and precision of a weaving machine in a textile factory, the spider's hindmost pair of skeletal, spur-tipped legs then darted back to the tip of its abdomen and began to fling out a stream of white, thick silk.

Flipping the moaning ostrich dino over, the spider rotated it like a piece of woodwork on a lathe before Ann's horror-stricken eyes, wrapping fans of silk around its prey to form a terrible straightjacket, binding it like a mummy. The chick's mother didn't come charging back to try anything heroic.

And really, who would dare?

Halfway through its grim, frenzied marionette performance, with its catch already reasonably bonded up, the spider plunged its head down, biting deep into the young ostrich dino's shoulder. The feathered dinosaur went limp and silent seconds later, its dying eyes blankly staring at both humans. They seemed to contain the same shocked, saddened expression that Mike's had had as the transfixed soundman's life left him. Mercifully, the spider then spared her any further contemplation as it swiftly tucked the chick's head and neck against its feathered chest and began to wrap that in silk too.

The attack had been so quick, so unexpected, that neither Ann nor Jack had had the presence of mind to do anything but stand rooted in place, eyes bulging like owls. Her flesh and entrails knotted with revulsion.

For the rest of her life, Ann Darrow would deeply blame herself for what she did at that moment, and what it irreversibly set in motion. And perhaps the blame would be rightly placed in this instance.

But she'd been yearning to do it anyhow for so long too. As they'd snuck about through this green hell, going rigid at every sound, the tension and the dread had been slowly, gradually crushing her morale and her mind like it was an accused witch in a torture press. She felt like a balloon that had been filled with air and was having even more forced in.

And now this unspeakably hideous, gut-twisting horror, truly something out of a nightmare...out of _**hell**_.

With all the force in her lungs and her diaphragm, Ann screamed, a piercing, ringing shriek that shredded the sweltering air. She followed up with a second, shriller and even more panicked than the first. And then she gave a third hysterical scream, a sound of raw panic that would freeze anyone's blood as she turned to blindly run deeper into the sopping forest.

Forgetting she was still linked to her sheik's trousers, she jerked Jack back as she bolted. With a short, sharp cry of his own, he tumbled backward, limbs windmilling like those of a monkey in freefall. He crashed heavily into her right side, knocking them both to the ground.

As his weight came down across her slender form, the instinctual child-ape that had taken control of Ann, her completely panicked gaze still locked on the fever dream spider, wildly interpreted it as an attack by another one of the creatures. She struggled weakly, like a dying fish in a boat, as Jack lifted himself off her and then turned around, a desperate look on his face as his hands came down on each side of her head, his knees on her legs.

She saw him...and yet didn't see him, as she continued to scream, her throat beginning to sting now.

"Shut _UP_!" he desperately, savagely hissed. "Shut the hell up, damn you!" he harshly implored, his left hand darting out to cover her mouth and nose. She could taste sweat and loam as he wheezed, "He'll hear that!" His green eyes were frantic, the muscles in his face knotted by tension.

"Mmmmuuummppphhh-uummmppphhh-uuuummmpppphhhh!" she shouted through his hand. She could see the great spider scurrying back up a dragline of silk as thick as a corncob, the dinosaur clamped tightly in those awful jaws as it vanished back into the canopy.

His head darting fearfully about, Jack saw it too, for he turned back to her and babbled placatingly, "It's okay Ann, it's going away now. Just calm down!"

But the terrified little girl in Ann's mind wasn't done yet. She kicked and bucked, uttering high-pitched groans as she pushed at Jack's thick arms.

"For cripe's sake, stop it!" Jack urged, his teeth clenched with fear as he pressed down even harder.

And then, as Ann produced more muffled screams and clawed at Jack's smothering hand, two loud sounds burst through the air and sent her plummeting back into reality.

The first was another one of Kong's distressed, searching roars.

Right on its heels came the boom of a gunshot.

Neither of them moved, Ann still violently quivering against Jack as waves of nausea and freezing terror pulsed through her stomach.

"Stay still," Jack hissed. "The spider is long gone, but now that monster gorilla just heard you! Be quiet and quit panicking!"

Both Kong's roar and the gunshot to aid them had already sobered her up nicely. She willed herself to go rigid, to drag the girl-savage within her back into her cellar.

Springing to his feet, Jack momentarily gave a wild look in the direction of the spot where Kong had roared before grabbing Ann's wrist and hauling her to her feet without any formalities. They exchanged a quick, terrified yet hopeful glance, and then turned in the direction of the gunshot, breaking into a churning run across the path and through the tangle of jungle.

No more caution. No more strategy. Sheer instinct ruled, and it told Ann that she had to just run, for God's sake, just quit thinking and run. Like he'd done so often, Jack led, his arms extended and tilting as he barreled through bushes, dodged trees, hurdled logs and rocks, and cut around boulders.

_I didn't know you were such a great steeplechaser Mr. Driscoll,_ a part of Ann thought with crazy humor. She silenced it in the next moment. There was nothing funny about this. Her man was running for his life.

Like silent-movie comedians, they ran, branches whipping them in the face, tearing at her hair, stumbling over rocks, leaves slapping her body. One of Kong's roars shook the air again, spurring them on even faster. It was louder than before. Closer!

Another gunshot exploded through the air.

"It's a signal!" Jack cried. "We're almost there! Just hang in there Ann!"

Suddenly, the ground began to drop steeply, and Jack skidded to a stop, catching himself just in time by grabbing a vine. Ann saw him fling out his free left arm, and her momentum sent her crashing into it. The force of her impact buckled Jack's knees, and gave a brief "Ahh!" as his body began to slide down the slope, right hand still clutching the creeper for dear life-

Thankfully though, Ann saw the soles of his feet connect with a wide boulder jutting out of the hillside, bringing him to a stop. Now Ann found herself sliding down the hill however, rocks jabbing and scraping her back as she picked up speed. She was going to crash, be dashed to death against a tree trunk or boulder, or end up broken at the bottom of the hill!

And then, by some miracle, she felt Jack's left arm curling around her chest, grasping her securely under her armpits and drawing her to his body, the sudden yank of Ann's arrested momentum almost sending him with her. But his feet stayed firm as he pulled her onto the boulder, breathing ragged as he clasped her to him.

"Are you okay?" he said, voice shaky from the same fear she felt.

Swallowing, she nodded, saying "Thanks to you I am," as she looked down the hill, leaning back against the hillside.

"Dear Jesus, that was too close," Jack shuddered, face strained. "If I'd missed with my grab-"

"Well, you didn't," Ann tightly responded, numb with thankfulness and gratitude and having cheated death for the thirtieth time.

Before they could say anything else, Kong's primal, deep scream made the early morning air vibrate like a banjo string, even closer now! His face constricted by terror, Jack cast a look up the hill before turning back to her and desperately asking, "How good is he at climbing on steep hills or mountainsides like this one?"

"It might as well be a ramp to him," she responded gravely.

"That settles it then," Jack said decisively. "We've just got to scramble down this damn hill and hope it slows him up a bit."

He took her hand, and after taking a breath, Ann saying a silent prayer, they did just that, rushing and bounding and scrambling down the hillside in a fearsome, barely controlled fall, arms and legs fluttering. Years of doing pratfalls, backflips, cartwheels, and other acrobatic tricks had made Ann very flexible and agile. She knew how to keep herself from getting badly hurt in a fall, and used her weight to counterbalance her less adept boyfriend whenever she could.

Still, it wasn't enough to keep them from ultimately crashing to the bottom of the hill in an undignified, sprawling heap. They both laid there on the ground for a few moments, breathing ragged. Ann didn't know about Jack, but her body hurt and ached all over. This would leave some bruises, most definitely. She could hear the sound of rushing water again, and realized that a river was close in front of them. Was it the river they'd landed in? Or a different waterway?

Raising her head, she saw that they were at the base of a triangular peninsula of gravel and sand. In front of it, a smaller river, flowing from their left, met a larger jungle river, flowing southward. Placing her hands in front of her, Ann painfully got to her feet. She was bruised, but nothing was broken or ripped open.

Jack wasn't so lucky. As he began to right himself, he suddenly gave a choked, shuddering cry, and one of his hands went to his left shoulder. To her horror, Ann could see blood trickling from between his fingers.

At his side in an instant, she cried, "Jack, what happened?"

His teeth and eyelids tight, voice strained, he replied, "Got my shoulder ripped open **again** by a rock while we went down that hill. Jesus that hurts!"

"Pull your hand back Jack, just for a second," Ann urged.

He did, and Ann saw a shallow gash in his flesh, exactly where the old one had been, the color of raspberry jam and leaking blood.

"Oh God Jack," her voice quavered, mouth open. "That's a real hurt. You need to rest a bit."

"We can't rest," he replied, panting, his eyes meeting hers. "Not with him on our tail."

And as if relishing in their terror, Kong gave another "Wrraaaggghhh!"

It was much closer, and they whipped around together, its nearness sending complete panic shooting through Ann's veins. They probably had ten minutes at best before the giant ape was climbing down this hillside, probably less.

Flashing in the opposite direction, Ann felt her curls slap against her cheeks as she looked back at both rivers. On the other side of the smaller tributary, the bank's incline was far less pronounced, going up at maybe a 50 degree angle. The terrain of the far bank was also gentler, more rounded, with few stones and many plants for handholds.

The smaller river was 160 feet wide, and the idea that they would have to take such a length of time swimming across it, exposed and totally vulnerable to whatever loathsome beasts lurked in its depths made Ann's throat and shoulder muscles constrict in a spasm of terror. But they had no choice! Nada!

Shooting her a harried look, Jack asked her, "Can he swim?"

Goading her memory, she replied, "I honestly don't think he can. Wade, but not swim."

"How do you know?"

"Because when he came to the swamp while taking me to his home, he skirted around the edge and climbed through the trees whenever he could. And when he came to a river, he went along the south bank for quite a good distance until he found a fallen tree that he could use to cross. Either he was worried about drowning or that he or I would be attacked by something in the deep water."

"Then let's get this river between us and that ape right away," Jack said as he grabbed her by the right forearm and dragged her along. Instead of plunging right into the water, he broke into a jog along the bank, headed upstream. Ann had already noted that the speed of the smaller river's current was fairly mild, but the main river's flow was still pretty strong, even at this lower elevation. Jack knew it too, and was hurriedly heading to a safer place to enter the river, roughly pulling her behind him.

Doing the best she could to keep up with her shorter legs, she matched his harried pace over the gravel and rounded small boulders. Seven hundred feet upstream, he came to a stop and faced the river again, releasing his bone grinding grip on her arm.

Within seconds, he'd waded out into the sparkling water up to his hips. Ann couldn't join him. Dreadful, courage-killing little films in her head, of being dragged down by some aquatic horror, kept her bare, bloodied feet planted in the sand.

"Come on!" Jack yelled sharply, body half turned as he wildly cupped his right arm toward his chest repeatedly, its motion blurred.

"I can't!" she wailed helplessly. "What if something's waiting in the water to eat us? What if I drown? What if there's quicksand on the other side?"

Her protest was answered by a deafening roar-scream, no more than a quarter mile away if that.

His terror making the water ripple, Jack barked back, "Well there's a titanic ape on this side that's nearly on top of us! Move, damn it!"

His shockingly harsh words and the terrible immediacy of Kong's presence-she could hear vegetation being crushed now-shattered Ann Darrow's vacillation. Choosing the deep blue sea, she raced into the water headlong like a hunted otter, flopping onto her belly before she was even out of her depth.

She paddled like a crazy thing, spray from her hands flying into her eyes as she stayed on Jack's left side, leaving an arrowhead ripple behind her as the current nonchalantly tugged at their bodies. They only fought it as much as they prudently could, keeping their eyes locked on the opposite bank, a desperate hope consuming Ann the closer they got-

The swim just seemed to go on and on, Ann's muscles aching with strain. She was all too aware that she and Jack were bleeding into the water, and anything could be sniffing it at this very moment, headed toward the source like a moth to a flashlight. But she fought through the growing fatigue and fear, and willed herself on.

Two-thirds of the way across the river, Ann heard a hellacious, air-tearing crash of vegetation as Kong came bursting out of the jungle. She heard wood crack, bushes break, and stones loudly clack against each other as he expertly came barreling down the face of the rugged hill with all the subtlety and force of an avalanche.

Then she heard gravel grating and crunching as he raced to the place where they'd just entered the river. A roar of primal, bestial rage erupted at them across the murky river, accompanied by a hollow, echoing thumping sound.

Even as she swam, Ann dared to steal a glance over her shoulder. Standing on his hind legs, Kong beat a tattoo of challenge and vehemence on his hulking chest with those fists as he seemed to split the sky with those infuriated, seething roars, staring daggers with his amber eyes. If a sound could ever have a color, this one did, and its hue was blood-red.

Then the opposite shore was right _there_, and Ann's fingertips brushed submerged sand. Jack was already standing up, water pouring off him as he turned around and splashed towards her, mechanically grabbing her wrist as she squatted and hauling her to her feet. As he dragged her, windmilling for balance, through the shallows, Ann heard Kong give an even more desperate, angry roar behind them.

They were safely across the river, and Ann was fairly confident that even if he walked on his hind feet, the water would still be too deep for Kong to risk crossing. But although he couldn't reach them, she realized with an awful, dawning comprehension that things had psychologically taken a serious turn for the worse.

For now Kong had caught Jack red-handed with the woman they both treasured, out in plain view.

* * *

**Anyone who has not read A Sound of Thunder is living an incomplete life, IMO.**

**The gliding lizards Jack and Ann see on the trees are all from the book The World of Kong, as well as the yellow and black butterfly. So is the nasty king-sized spider, dubbed Stickalithus in the book and depicted as quite similar to a golden orb weaver spider. Interestingly, golden orb weavers have been documented as catching the odd bird or bat in their webs. **

**The gliding _dinosaurs_ however, are my own creation, I'm pleased to say, inspired by the extraordinary fossils found in southeastern China over the past decade, with Microraptor and Sinornithosaurus being my main influences. And they may just make a cameo again! The legless lizard and purple butterfly, based on a blue morpho, are also from inside my head, as well as the ostrich dinosaurs.**

**Finally, for what it's worth, whenever dreaming up a color scheme for large dinosaurs, crocodiles, or other big reptiles, one should keep in mind that modern large, naked skinned animals that live in hot climates (elephants, pythons, rhinos, monitor lizards, humans, alligators, sharks) are all generally dark in color, for protection against UV radiation. When it comes to a coat of feathers though, you have a vastly greater selection to choose from. I used various species of parrots and tropical pigeons as color references for the gliding dinosaurs, and various kinds of duiker and the okapi for the ostrich dinos.**


	42. Things Fall Apart

**Well, as I said before, this chapter sees the end of Jack and Ann's harrowing experiences in Skull Island's rainforest. Unfortunately, it also encompasses the disintegration of their relationship. ;(**

**Did I ever go over this part of the movie with a fine-toothed comb. Of course, considering all that goes on in that scene, and the high emotions one has to capture, there wasn't much choice.**

* * *

"Things Fall Apart." Title of a 1958 novel by Chinua Achebe.

"You run, you swim, you almost drown, you curse, you sweat, you work, you reach a mountain, you go up it, you hammer on metal, you shout with relief, and then-you can't find the entrance." _Frost and Fire,_ by Ray Bradbury, 1947.

"What a fuckup, he groaned inside. Oh Dear God, what a fuckup." _Firestarter_, by Stephen King, 1980.

"I watched the gorilla's eyes again, wise and knowing eyes..." _Last Chance To See_, by Douglas Adams, 1991.

* * *

And then Jack did the most foolish thing he could've done in front of Kong.

Although Ann struggled and told him, "Jack, don't!" he wheeled around and yanked her behind him, a gesture performed either out of instinctual protectiveness or in the fashion of a young child who covers his eyes when caught misbehaving, believing he'll become invisible. Well, he wasn't going to somehow make her vanish anytime soon, if that was his intention.

Leaning forward, tendons standing out under his tanned skin, he then possessively shouted, "Too bad buddy! She's _my dame_, not yours!"

Shaking with fury, Kong responded with a roar, and then picked up a huge boulder in both hands. With shocking agility for his mammoth size, he half-turned and flung it at them. The boulder came down about 40 feet from their bank of the river, striking the water like a cannonball and spraying a fountain of water into the morning air.

Two different emotions flared up underneath Ann's breastbone, a dust devil of pure agitated turmoil.

Although she knew Jack was just doing what made sense to him, trying to get them both as far away from the ape as fast as he could manage, her boyfriend's actions were only further reinforcing the idea in Kong's mind that Jack was kidnapping her, meant her harm. She had to defuse this situation, right now.

And although she might've thought differently at another time...well, she simply couldn't bear the thought of Kong's last memory of her being a retreating back and not-so-clean pair of heels. He was the most terribly lonely and bored creature she'd ever seen. He'd saved her life at serious risk to his own. He deserved far better than to be left with only the sense that she'd betrayed him, a perplexing anguish to brood on for the rest of his days.

Frightened by the threat, Jack loosened his grip on her arm and Ann darted to the right, before making a U-turn that put her in front of him, facing Kong. Now that he could see her clearly, and tell she was unhurt, Kong's baleful stare softened a touch, yet became more strained all at once, focused right on her.

It was a look of intermingled desire, confusion, frustration, joy, and concern. Jack began to curl an arm around her waist, but then stopped, letting it fall.

Furtively tilting her head back, Ann could see something pass between both her heroes. Jack was scared out of his wits by Kong and his power, most certainly. But he also suddenly seemed to comprehend the awareness, the _self-_awareness, and majesty in those eyes that had so awed and thrilled her. She suspected their time with poor Mufasa in the Pridelands was playing no small part.

"My God," he muttered, blinking slowly in astonishment, like she'd seen him while he'd struggled to grasp the fact that they were on the moon.

Kong lowered his head and growled, a fearsome sound, and Jack reacted by grabbing her around the waist, pulling her back, and then flinging out his right arm in front of her.

Frustrated, Ann shoved at his arm with the heels of her hands, saying, "Quit it Jack! You're only making it worse!"

And indeed, Jack's actions brought about a screeching roar from Kong, who now decided to choose a lighter weapon to toss at the human male he most hated in the world.

Whirling about, giving a growl that seemed to say, "All right, just you wait!" he grabbed a large bough jutting out from the tree next to him with both hands and went into a downward squat. Accompanied by a great cracking, drawn-out snap, the bough broke, and with the deceptive prowess of a discus thrower, a snarling Kong then flung the branch across the water.

Astonished by such a display of physical power, Ann hurriedly sidestepped to her right a couple yards with Jack leading, than watched as the jagged bough flew through the air with the grace of a boomerang.

With its lighter density, the massive branch traveled farther, detonating against the surface within 50 feet of them, and Ann felt water patter down on her head and body, involuntarily cringing.

Jack cringed back even more, grabbing her by the upper arm and hauling her with him. Twisting around, feeling Jack's fingers make furrows in her pale flesh, she dug in her heels and jerked back as she faced him, demanding, "Stop it and let me go Jack Driscoll! You're upsetting him."

Jack stared at her in flabbergasted disbelief.

"_I'm_ the one who's upsetting _**him**_?" he drawled, shock and astonishment etched on his features, even as he shifted his grip to her forearm.

"Yeah. He thinks you're hurting me...which you kinda are," she added, batting at his wrist.

Suddenly, she heard Kong give a harrowing roar, and turned to see him rush into the river on all fours, surging into the water like an ocean liner being launched. The sight and realization made her heart jump up into her throat, lightning bolts of panic slashing through her arteries. Could he cross it? Was he so desperate, so mad that he would actually drown himself trying to get to her?

Jack wisely didn't seem to want to stay around and find out, giving a sharp cry and backpedaling several yards as she resisted.

"Oh Christ," he whispered helplessly.

But Kong only rushed into the water until it was up to the small of his back, sending a tidal wave of river water shooting out before him to splash on the far bank. His steely brown eyes, filled with hate, never left Jack as the ape emitted a series of ear-splitting, sonorous barks, sweeping his leathery hand through the surface of the water to send great plumes of water into the air.

Balling her hands into fists, she slammed them against Jack's breastbone, urging him, "I'm telling you, let go of my arm. He thinks you're kidnapping me."

"But I'm getting you out of here!"

"Well, he doesn't know that," Ann replied, gesturing towards Kong as she looked into Jack's uncertain, fearful eyes, alternately glancing down at her and up at the ape. "I don't fully understand why myself, but he took a liking to me, especially after I stood up to him, and then became very protective. You've already experienced his rage when he was just defending _himself_. That's small potatoes compared to what he can and he will do if he thinks I'm in danger."

"Oh, I think I can imagine," Jack said weakly.

"If you want this to end well, you've got to stop making it look like I'm your prisoner," she implored.

"Then what should I do?"

"Let go of me, push me away, something. Then walk to the bottom of the hill, where the jungle starts again. And don't look at him either. He'll see that as aggressive," she added.

Voice and expression pained, he protested, "Ann, I can't."

"It's not as if it's forever. Just do it," she coaxed. "It's only fifty feet."

As if seeing it for the first time, Jack's gaze dropped to the hand grasping her arm. Then he reluctantly let it fall, turned on his heel with a sigh, and took a few tentative strides away from her, toward the jungle.

"Keep going," she called to his back. "Pretend you're watching for anything that might come out of the jungle if you have to." She thought she heard Jack dryly mumble something about reverse psychology.

At any rate though, she saw his back lock as he uncertainly, uneasily forced himself to pace up to the border of the forest, giving her discreet, sideways glances over his shoulder.

Turning away herself to face across the river, drawing a deep breath, she called out "Kong!" in the still morning air. "I'm going to go with Jack now," she declared, pointing behind her, her eyes never leaving the gorilla's umber ones. "Yes, with him. I want to. I need to! Don't you see? This isn't my home, it doesn't belong to me, and I don't belong to it! I know you'd do anything for me, but I wouldn't survive for long here."

"Thank you Kong. Thank you for saving my life and for showing me what you are and who you are. I'll never forget you, and I hope you won't either!" she went on, throat tightening with emotion. "I'm not running out on you. I want to go with Jack, with a male of my own kind. Please accept that," she said.

His eyes filled with a considering longing, the enormous, majestic ape then gave a meditative grunt, looking at her, then over her head at Jack. He gave a peevish, sulky growl as he regarded the playwright, less like thunder in its volume than a car's engine idling, and gave a final, perfunctory splash with his right hand.

Kong looked down at her again, swaying back and forth uncertainly in the water.

"I'm sorry," she shrugged sadly, face glum.

Exhaling deeply, Kong then backed up slightly, turned around, and galloped out of the river, back onto the far bank. As he faced her once again, he stood erect and roared, pounding his chest just like he had after killing the last of the grinning dinosaurs that had nearly devoured her. She recognized it as a final display of his power and majesty and magnificence, put on just for her, so she could remember him the way he'd like to be remembered, as the king of Skull Island that he was.

Knowing just how to respond, Ann made herself smile even as tears pricked at and warmed her eyes, lightly patting her chest between her collarbone and breasts as she nodded, telling him, "It was all so wonderful, beautiful. Yes, beautiful." She thought she heard Jack splutter behind her, but ignored it.

Tearing her gaze away with a supreme effort, she turned and silently walked over to Jack, gliding up on his left side.

After wiping flowing tears away with the back of her hand, she rasped, "Let's get going. Start climbing."

Jack was more than ready to do just that, and they scrambled up the shallow slope like monkeys, hanging on to branches and vines as they pulled themselves up, hoping there wasn't anything waiting to ambush them at the top.

Midway up the hill, Ann paused to look over her shoulder at Kong, still standing like a statue on the bank. The forlorn, yet accepting expression on his face was unbearable, and she turned away, guilt prickling her heart. Near the top, she heard a crash of branches, then a clattering and crunching of stones that moved up and away. She turned a second time. But Kong was already gone.

At the summit of the slope, they stood, Jack helping her up. "Look!" he said suddenly. "There's the wall!" And indeed, the knobbed top of the structure was just visible through the tops of the trees, just a mile from where they stood.

Ann felt her face light up with excitement in tandem with Jack's. There it was! The promise of sanctuary, so near and within sight now! They might actually get off this horrible, brutal, lost island. One day, she could set foot on the docks of New York Harbor again, hand in hand with Jack, striding off into the sunset and their life together.

She could feel and see a similar feeling of cautious hope galvanize the playwright as well. But she also knew that this was no time to start running pell-mell or otherwise get sloppy with things. A mile through Skull Island's jungles was still a mile, after all.

As they began to pick their way down the gentle incline, fighting the urge to just start racing for the village, Jack softly asked her, not unkindly, "Do you think he understood what you were saying?"

"There's no doubt in my mind," she replied with conviction. "Believe me Jack, he understands things you and I will never even be able to guess at."

Nodding thoughtfully, he then looked away, saying "Do you think we can assume he'll actually surrender you to me this easily?"

"Honestly, I don't know," Ann shrugged, even as she waved away a metallic blue mosquito the size of a sparrow that was buzzing near her cheek, a great rift of sadness opening inside her as she thought of him. "He's been alone for Lord knows how long Jack, and may be having second thoughts about being that way again. If so, he could be looking for a way to cross the river even as we speak. But then again, he could be heading back to his mountain."

"If I was him, I wouldn't be heading back, that's for sure," Jack knowingly replied. "So we've got to assume the worst and stay beneath his notice for just a little longer. Then we get the hell away from here."

"What do you think Carl, Englehorn, and the others are doing?" Ann wondered.

"Carl's probably crying like the big fat baby he's shown himself to be on this trip and gulping down pints of whiskey over his smashed camera, I can tell you that much," he contemptuously snorted, even as he scanned the underbrush for danger.

Ann had to giggle at that.

As they walked through the forest, Ann began to hear the sound of a stream trickling over gravel. Since it was flowing directly from the general direction of the village, Jack pointed toward the burbling noise, giving her a quick glance before angling toward it.

Slow moving, only a foot deep, and ranging from 4 to 7 feet wide, the stream wasn't particularly striking as it made its way to the smaller river they'd just paddled across. Yet, as the forest pulled away from its banks a few dozen yards, Ann followed Jack along a gradual bend in the creek-and into one of the most beautiful sights and places she'd ever seen on this forgotten, accursed island.

It was a surpassingly gorgeous canyon, 70 feet deep and 40 feet wide. Ferns carpeted its vertical walls in lush profusion, dense mosses growing under and among the stalks. All this exuberant growth was kept well watered by water that dribbled out of the limestone walls, trickling down the sides of the canyon and dripping off the fern leaves like diamonds. The shallow creek meandered through it, passing under or around the odd weathered, gnarled log of driftwood.

Her breath taken away by the stunning, postcard worthy scene, Ann turned to Jack, asking him, "Is this the same gorge the brontosaur stampede happened in?"

"No," he replied, shaking his head and uncertainly weaving forward and backward on his feet. "That one didn't have a stream in it, and the ground was a lot more rugged, among other things."

"Should we go in?" she suggested, glancing back at the verdant canyon.

He hesitantly looked at her, then down the lush gorge, which veered away to the right maybe a hundred yards from where they were standing. Folding his arms, his eyebrows lowered as he stated firmly, "Absolutely not. Every time I've gone into a gorge lately, I've nearly been trampled and crushed to death by a bunch of fear-maddened beasts. And you came awfully close the last time as well," he emphasized, pointing at her.

"I know," she responded grimly, swallowing and briefly shutting her eyes as memories she'd rather not have had, of being knocked down to dusty stone, being stepped on by cloven hooves, rammed by droopy horned heads, resurfaced in her mind. "But there don't seem to be any large animals around here now," she pointed out.

"I'm not going in," Jack vowed. "No chance. Bad things happen whenever I stroll into a gorge."

"It feels peaceful enough to me," she said, scanning the fern-lined chasm. "Besides, if Kong has ended up changing his mind about letting me leave, this canyon will give us the perfect place to move fast, but also stay out of his sight. And the noise of the stream should help muffle any sounds we make," she added.

Jack squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, saying "Ann, I really don't want to go in there. We just don't know what could be around the next bend-and if we run into trouble, we'll be trapped like rats."

"I know," Ann replied softly. "But it doesn't feel that way to me, not dangerous like the gorge in the Pridelands. It leads us in the direction of the wall, and we can stay hidden from view and out of reach from most things in the jungle," she sensibly proposed.

Looking back down the still, dripping gorge, Jack sighed before relenting and saying, "Well, you have a good point there. If I was by myself, I wouldn't dare go in-but if your instincts are telling you it's safe, I'll trust them."

Walking side by side, they both entered the gorgeous gorge, wading through parts of the stream and stepping over jumbled driftwood. Dragonflies and damselflies hovered in the soaking air, and gliding lizards soared between the canyon walls. Swallows swooped about, hawking insects or dipping down to drink from the stream on the wing.

In a pool of water formed by a weathered log, they saw one of Skull Island's smaller dragons, a four and a half foot water monitor lizard, big as a small child and blissfully soaking itself. Mostly gray brown in color, its bony scales mottled with dirty yellow, the lizard raised its head and regarded them with its alert, inquisitive brown eyes as they passed by, idly flicking its forked pink tongue.

Once Ann heard a wiry screech and they both jerked back into the dripping ferns. Snatching up a stone the size of an orange, Jack stood ready to protect her. But the noise was from a small brownish bat, scrabbling and struggling as a tree snake pulled it out from a crevice 40 feet off the ground, curling around the doomed mammal as the other members of the colony fled, bursting out into the morning air. Her heart slumping with relief, Ann moved on.

Then, coming around a left-curving bend, Ann and Jack encountered something that froze them in their tracks with astonishment and awe and disbelief. Cropping the ferns that grew on the canyon wall was a titan so huge it put even Kong to shame.

"Oh my Goodness..." Ann said simply, slowly craning her neck back as she looked up.

Jack did the same, gaping like a fish.

Facing them was a giant beyond size. Its head, absurdly diminutive but still slightly bigger than a rhino's and surprisingly broad, like a shovel's blade, reared 54 feet into the air, held atop an impossibly long, svelte sloping neck, 38 feet in length.

High, elegant shoulders, like a giraffe's, sloped down at a forty-five degree angle to a shorter pair of back legs and a mid-length tail that Ann estimated as maybe 25 feet long, from what she could see between the dinosaur's legs.

Its massive body, covered in small, pebbly scales, was dark green-blue in color. Upside-down chevrons of maroon red adorned each side of its crane (as in the machine) neck, and orange pinstripes ran down its upper flanks. A line of spiky, gray-black scales as tall as a draft horse ran down the dinosaur's spine.

"My God, it makes Kong look like a midget," Jack whispered in astonishment.

Ann had to admit it was true. The reptilian colossus had to outweigh Kong by six to one.

As it strolled towards them, slicing off and swallowing fern fronds with teeth like rounded chisels, she was stricken by how amazingly elegant and gracile the dinosaur's form was, the poise and majesty with which this gargantuan reptile moved.

Even the way it walked, moving the legs on the right side of its body first, then the left, raising each forelimb off the ground and extending it in the posture of a woman offering her hand for a kiss before placing it down again, was performed with such dignity, the magisterial beauty of elephants walking across the savanna. It was a king, and carried itself like one.

"What is it Jack?" she asked in wonder.

"I don't know. It looks like a Brachiosaurus to me, but this is even bigger. It's definitely not some fat oaf that lives in a swamp, I can tell you that."

Strangely, it never occurred to her or even Jack to be scared of the dinosaur. It was a plant eater, with nothing to gain by killing another creature. Indeed, like tiny animated flyspecks, swallows, myna birds, and drongos were perched atop its back and dorsal scales, darting off to grab insects and then return to the giant to eat their catches. It wasn't panicked, or threatening them, or upset. They weren't at its mercy. And it would've taken three men, standing on each other's shoulders, just to reach its belly. They were quite literally, below its notice.

Besides, can one be frightened by the Sears Tower? By Mars? The Great Pyramid? The Empire State Building? A humpback whale? No, they just _**are**_, in all their jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, wondrous glory.

It was getting past the titanic saurian in the close quarters of the canyon that was another issue.

They shared an uneasy, apprehensive glance as Jack inquired, "Do you think we should approach it and try to snake by, or just backtrack?"

"We'll probably have to," Ann replied, as she regarded the dinosaur's long legs and 25 foot wide torso. She'd done fairly well at keeping herself in the gaps between wildebeest in the stampede. And they'd been much smaller, moving a lot faster, and a lot more agitated than this fern-eating goliath.

Jack was a bit more worried.

"I really don't like the idea of going under that thing's legs," he informed her, turning to look at her again, jaw set.

"Who says we need to? We can just go through the space between the right wall and its flank," she pointed out, gesturing at the gap. "You just have to be calm and be quick about it Jack. We're like rats to it."

"Okay, let's do it then," Jack said, taking a breath and grasping his courage. "Time to pull one last Brodie."

As they approached the huge dinosaur, it stopped feeding and stood in place, a mouthful of ferns still radiating from its mouth as it attentively stared at them.

"Just keep walking Jack," Ann assured him, sensing his worry. "It's okay."

The massive beast then lowered its head, neck forming a parabola as it regarded them curiously with its dark brown, dull tortoise eyes. She could smell its horsey breath and see the ropes of thick drool that lubricated each bite of plants sliding from its mouth, dripping on the gravel.

As they unhurriedly walked by, the dinosaur shifted in place and swung its head around slightly, tracking them with its right eye in the casually interested manner of a person watching a chipmunk skitter by. Just like Ann had thought, it was a gentle giant.

Suddenly, the great reptile startled at something, tensing and looking downstream, holding its high-crested head high like a goose. Then it made a curious motion, flinging its head backward and over its giraffe shoulders, starting to stamp in place. Ann felt a weird, brief thrumming in the air, like from a pipe organ.

Two seconds later, one of Kong's roars split the air! She realized, surprised yet also not surprised, that when all was said and done, he hadn't wanted to relinquish her! And he'd found a way over to their side of the river too!

No time for vigilance and caution in their movements now. It had become a dreadful race again, plain and simple.

Exchanging a wild stare with Jack, Ann broke into a run, not caring anymore if it upset the dinosaur. Giving an elk-like bugle, the dinosaur began to back up and stamp and throw its body around like a spooked elephant, much to the consternation of both humans.

A scaly pillar appeared in front of them. Releasing Jack's hand, Ann dodged it easily though, and ran on.

A twitching, python tail flicked spasmodically, swooping over their heads, and they ducked as the titan gave another deep bugle. In another harried moment or two they were past it.

The gravel slammed painfully into the soles of her tender feet with each step, but Ann did her best to bear it as they ran. Thankfully, they soon came to the place where the stream entered the short canyon.

Here, the walls were a mere 20 feet high. Even better, whatever lost civilization had once inhabited this dreadful island had carved a series of stone steps into both sides of the gorge.

Without needing to think, they both darted to the flight on the left. Letting go of her hand, Jack ushered her up the granite stairs first, pushing at the small of her back and looking behind him repeatedly, face twisted by agitation as he babbled, "Let's go, hurry!"

Her mind a whirl of confusion and fear, Ann achieved the top step soon enough, standing up and doing an about-face to take Jack's dirt-smeared mitt of a hand and help pull him up.

Without stopping, they broke into a run, headed for the direction of the defensive wall.

Suddenly Jack skidded to a stop, blinking and looking at the ground.

"Why are you stopping Jack?" Ann asked him, consumed by the jitters and an overwhelming urge to keep running. "We've got to keep moving!"

One of his long fingers flashed down, pointing at several sets of boot prints in the firm mud, overlapping one another.

"This is the path the Venture's crewmen and I took the first time!" he announced with dawning excitement, eyes widening with delight as he turned to her. "It'll lead us straight to the wall. Come on Ann, we're almost there!"

* * *

A wild, eager thrill flooded through Jack like a cup of hot coffee on a December afternoon as his head snapped up from the tracks and he spared a moment to look down the path. They were literally right on track! And although the writer was all too aware that many of the good men who'd produced these boot prints were now gone-and on his account, worst of all-seeing their traces was almost like meeting old friends again in a way.

But there was no time to dawdle. Kong was steadily nearer, and there was no way in hell Jack was going to let the ape win this race, not when he and Ann were this close.

Grasping her delicate hand in his own and breaking into a desperate run for what seemed like the thousandth time, (and last, one way or the other, his mind whispered) his scarred legs churned as they practically flew down the path, like a pair of police dogs after a thief. The trouble was, there was also an awfully big police dog after them as well.

They were terror and expectation on swift feet, oblivious to anything else.

A cloud of butterflies in the path, drinking from a puddle, exploded in flight, swirling in all directions like animated confetti as Jack and Ann barged through, the water splashing under their feet.

A pair of lorikeets, plum purple in color with canary yellow wingtips and crimson throats, shot across their path.

Suddenly, as they ran down a hill, Jack went "Whoa!" and yanked Ann back up short.

They'd nearly run right into a herd of dinosaurs coming up the path! A glance at the horsey heads and conical spiked thumbs told him that these creatures, each the size of a female African elephant, were Iguanodons.

The gracile herbivores were moss green in color, with rich brown heads and cinnabar red zebra striping on their sturdy hind legs. Dewlapped like zebu cattle, the dinosaurs were clearly at something of a loss about how to respond to this sudden encounter, fidgeting in place and staring at them nervously with their lead gray sheep eyes.

_Oh Christ, we don't have time for this!_ Jack thought desperately.

His voice and nerves saturated with strain and utter agitation, he yelled at the reptiles, "For cripes sake, move, you morons!"

His desperate command was answered by another roar from the ape. Much too close!

* * *

_Ever wary and alert, the Iguanodon matriarch scanned the forest for any suspicious movement with her sideways facing horse eyes as she ambled down the trail, occasionally pausing to slice off and crunch a conveniently located frond or branch before continuing on._

_As leader of her clan, strung out behind her, the responsibility of detecting and recognizing danger weighed particularly heavily on her shoulders. Twice, she'd almost paid the price for failing to be observant enough herself, bearing raking scars on her back and right flank from when one of the hook-clawed pack hunters had tried to drag her down, and a misshapen lump halfway down her tail from where a three-quarters grown V. Rex had come close to yanking her off balance and to the ground._

_In the fitful, paranoid manner of prey species the world over, they'd dozed and grazed in a large, sunken hollow about half a mile away, about six and a half acres in size and ringed by crumbling, broken rock that made it difficult for predators to approach undetected. Now, as the sky lightened, the Iguanodon matriarch was leading her nine cohorts to a more open area of forest, carpeted by lush grass and ferns._

_There they would feed in the cool of the morning, slicing off foliage with their sharp, notched tortoise beaks and pulling down tasty branches with the opposable fifth fingers on their mitten-like, half-moon shaped hands._

_Then, she heard a sound, a sound of something rapidly moving down the path toward them. She tensed, and ever-so-lightly stomped her right forefoot, a signal of mild alarm to her followers, head held high. Despite her lack of earlobes, the Iguanodon's hearing was still superior to a human's, and within seconds, even before they'd come into view, it had told her a great deal about the creatures._

_There were two of them, running side by side. They had two legs, but weren't running in quite the same way that she or the flightless birds did. Most importantly, she could hear that they were running in terror, fleeing for their lives._

_That got her quite concerned, and she began to back up, even as she strained to detect the sound of what enemy was pursuing them._

_Suddenly, the hunted creatures appeared, and the Iguanodon's eyes widened in surprise and alarm, the other members of her herd now starting to mill about. Part of it was due to her realization that these were the sharp-smelling, smaller, mostly hairless mammals that walked on two legs. Unusual enough in itself that they were here, a good distance away from their smoke-reeking encampment._

_And these particular two were much paler in color, had different hair and body shape, then any other of the hairless two-legs mammals she'd seen before._

_Far more alarming to the Iguanodon though, was the fact that she could smell that the hairless beings were scared, that they'd been chased. Because of the position of her eyes, the dinosaur's vision was split in two parts as if by an ax, making it impossible for her to see directly in front of her._

_Turning her long head to compensate, she could see the mammals more clearly, their postures and movements showing that they were almost beside themselves with terror._

_The larger male shouted at them, an indistinguishable, fierce, frantic, loud series of segmented sounds._

_Her dim Iguanodon mind began to grasp that she and her herd were in their path of flight. They weren't threatening in themselves, but something that was a potential danger to her was after them._

_It was too much, very serious, and she gave a quavering honk, standing erect before wheeling around. She plunged into the forest on her right with five other members of her sorority, the other four rushing off to the left, each one running on her hind legs in a sort of hunched posture, like a football player._

_As she did so, smashing saplings and bushes under her weight, an even louder, rumbling, air-shaking sound answered the male mammal's cry, spurring her onward. She knew exactly what creature made that terrible bellow, and for that matter, had even browsed within a couple hundred yards of the huge beast several times. Normally he was a peaceable vegetarian, just like she was._

_But she also knew that if he was threatened or angry, it was extremely dangerous to be around him or in his way. And he was not only angry, but very near as well, coming in this direction! Her eyes bulging, she and her sisters had no difficulty being motivated to pick up their speed._

* * *

There are times when it is best for sheer instinct to overrule caution and common sense, particularly when one is caught between a rock and a hard place. So it was right now with a deeply frightened Jack Driscoll.

The Iguanodons had sharp thumb spikes that they could wield like stilettos, sharp-edged beaks, and trampling hind feet. Yet Jack decided that they were far and away the lesser of two evils, and rushed through the elephant-sized dinosaurs with Ann, even as they were still scattering like bowling pins, stiff tails whipping the air as they wheeled.

They were fear itself on churning legs and pounding feet, fleeing from every terror in the world condensed into one single black, hairy, fanged elephantine horror, implacable and murderous.

He'd suspected that the ape would still doggedly pursue his angel, and find a way to cross the river. He also knew it was shockingly fast. But he had not expected Kong to be so close _already_! He could hear vegetation crunching behind them, awfully near.

Hanging on to Ann's hand like a drowning man holding a life preserver, he tore down the machete-carved path he'd come along the first time, the grim, knobby basalt barrier that was the wall steadily growing larger in his vision. The sound of their feet was a hard, insistent drumbeat, a clatter, a suckling over packed dirt, firm mud, stony ground, slippery pebbles mantled in moss and wet lichen, down hills, up the side, over outcrops of stone, through thickets, and on again.

Bamboo and palms and tree ferns and hibiscus bushes smacked them in the face and arms and shoulders with their leaves, clawed and tugged at them as they madly raced towards the beach. Neither really paid much heed. They couldn't afford to.

He'd always known that when and if he actually did manage to reach Ann and successfully get her out of Kong's clutches, the ape wouldn't take it lying down, and would come after him like a wrathful storm god. He would have to run like an Olympic athlete if Ann had any hope of seeing New York again.

Now, his vision slowly forming a tunnel, whitish spots dancing and sparking before his eyes, Jack Driscoll was hardly even aware of _**her**_. He was running simply to save his life, and at a speed he'd never touched for weeks, a speed he knew he and Ann couldn't possibly maintain for long.

An agog part of the playwright was actually half grateful right then that Nduli had savaged him. If the leopard hadn't mauled him, Rafiki wouldn't have had cause to send them to a hospital-didn't it have kooky creatures in it besides humans too? And medical technology that far surpassed anything he'd seen before? His memory was getting hazy there-where they could relax, heal up, get into good condition before facing this green hell a second time.

There was no way in hell Jack could see himself having the endurance and energy to run like this, or get Ann through this insane jungle alive successfully, not right after already having gone through so many stamina and soul draining trials.

The average man, if in good condition and fueled by a little adrenaline, can attain speeds of 16 miles an hour for a few minutes.

Still, Jack was dimly aware that someone's legs were already getting pretty tired beneath him as they ran. He was going anaerobic now, seeing spots in his vision and feeling a sense of lightheadedness creep over him.

He could hear that Ann was flagging as well, her breath going and out in her slender throat like a sharpened knife being slid in and out of its sheath. But she continued to gamely fly along like a white antelope on her shorter legs, seeming to hardly touch the ground, still trustingly grasping his hand.

Another hopeful, angry roar tore the sauna air, even closer now!

"He's just too fast for us!" an interior, panicked part of him wordlessly shrieked. "He's going to catch me!" Within moments the ape would reach them, flicking out his hog-sized leathery hand to knock Jack down, grab him, and then crush his torso, snapping his ribs like icicles and shredding his life out with those fangs. Would it hurt? Would he be taken by the mercy of shock? Would he scream? Could Ann do anything to protect or save him? Images of what he'd seen Kong do to Ben Hayes and the bat-wolves flashed too vividly across his mind's eye.

In actual fact, Jack and Ann covered slightly more than two-fifths of a mile from the canyon to the yawning grotto in back of the wall in a bit less than five minutes. But as he saw the trees open up, the cleft stretching before them, it seemed to him like they'd run forever and a day. They'd never done anything in their lives but streak in terror through the jungles of Skull Island, a gigantic gorilla chasing them, eager for his blood and his dame.

Mechanically, Jack raced for, and then was striding up, the short flight of a dozen weathered, lichen-spotted stairs that led to the thick outcrop of stone. Wild with fear and adrenaline, his momentum nearly sent him blindly flying over the edge before he realized he the chasm was actually _there_, scrabbling to a stop as he flung out an arm to halt Ann as well. Her lighter mass and greater exhaustion though, had already brought her skidding to a stop several feet behind, sucking breath, her breasts and body quivering.

The dull, animal part of Jack blankly realized something was different about this scene, something that shouldn't be so.

Then the intellectual part understood with a freezing, paralyzing dread.

His last spoken words to Carl had been "Keep the gate open, will ya?"

But the gate _wasn't open!_ And the drawbridge _wasn't down!_ They'd gone through and suffered so much, endured one nightmarish incident after another where their souls had come so close to being split from their bodies, but against all conceivable odds, had been granted one more miracle after another.

And now, in a terminal, unspeakably cruel irony, he was going to die, maybe Ann as well, because _**the gate wasn't open!**_

"_Carl!_" he shouted imploringly, at the top of his lungs.

"_Please! __Somebody help us!_" Ann plaintively cried out.

He turned and looked back at her-slim, pale, angelic, fragile- a halo of stringy golden curls framing her smooth moon face, her lips partly drawn back in powerless, beseeching fear as she stared miserably at the top of the drawbridge. It was just ten feet above their heads, yet might as well have been a hundred.

Her expression crushed his heart and he turned away, unable to bear it. Desperate thoughts slashed at his very soul. His innocent, sensitive, gorgeous angel of a woman-what would become of her in the next several minutes now? And as for him, was this where had all his incredible luck and devotion and will and leonine courage had ultimately gotten this playwright from Manhattan Island?

Had he really gotten through being essentially shanghaied onto a tramp steamer, being run aground in a storm, ambushed and nearly brained by insanely violent savages, attacked and almost gored by some Triceratops-type dinosaur, getting caught up in a stampede of Brontosaurs and their vicious knife-clawed attackers that wanted to have him for lunch too, the swamp and the enormous viperfish-eel, the fall from the huge log, the nightmare insects and crabs and worms, Kong in his lair, the hyenas, the wildebeest stampede, the finish fight with Nduli that had nearly killed him, the bat-wolves, and the other horrors and hazards of the Skull Island jungle they'd just brushed by, all to die at Kong's hands just because a goddamn drawbridge wasn't lowered?

It wasn't the death he deserved; it wasn't the proper end of the arduous, fearful, lunatic track they'd so courageously run, oftentimes apart and alone. And for such a trivial reason at that!

"They're gone," Ann whispered in despairing disbelief, an eager roar from Kong answering her.

"Carl! Christ," he impotently rasped. It was a husky, half-screeched lament.

A sudden, horrific thought flared up in Jack's mind, causing his extreme nausea and terror to multiply.

What if the gunshots they'd heard _hadn't_ been meant to guide them back, but had been fired for a more ominous reason instead? What if the savages had regrouped and decided to counterattack, killing everyone from the Venture or at least driving them back to the ship? There could well be no one left alive in that village to meet them.

A truly hellish, sickening image broke through the white slate of terror Jack's mind had become, of a group of pierced, subhuman men with stringy hair seated in a circle as they ate of Carl or Jimmy's flesh, softly laughing at the sound of their cries.

"Carl!" he cried out again. No response of any sort came, not even from the natives. He could hear Kong's barking roars drawing very near. It just couldn't end like this!

"Oh Jack!" Ann sobbed helplessly.

Wildly, he goaded his adrenaline-drowned brain, a man without options looking for straws to cling to. He could hear the sound of Kong smashing branches and bushes right now, even his grunting.

What if they used his weight and momentum against him, staying where they were until the last possible second, then either scrambling aside or ducking, sending Kong plummeting into the grotto? Even if the fall didn't kill the huge ape outright, it would still cripple him at least, and buy them time.

Or should they start climbing down this jagged wall? Forbidding and risky, yes, but there were plenty of good handholds, and no doubt Kong would think twice before trying to negotiate a cliff like this with his bulk and clumsy fingers.

Every muscle and nerve strained by fear, he began to turn back towards Ann to tell her to get over here for this last desperate trick, fully expecting to see the ape's seething, ugly wrinkled face coming into view-he could hear its huffing grunts!-when a frustrated, wild "NNYYYYAAAAHHHH!" slashed through the air. An agonized shout followed.

Preston! Was he being tortured?

An instant later, his eyes registered the beautiful-beyond-words sight of the altar/bridge tilting towards them, falling like a guillotine's blade, and then slamming into their side of the chasm like a car being dropped.

This could well be a trap, and for a split second Jack hesitated.

And then the playwright's mind was made up for him as Kong's black, house-sized bulk exploded into view with a roar, knocking two gnarled trees aside in a shower of confettied leaves and twigs. The ape glanced longingly at Ann, and then impaled him with its yellow-brown, glowering gaze, vibrating with hate and desire.

"Come on!" Jack shouted, grabbing Ann's arm and flashing around like a cat before they both broke into a run across the drawbridge. As they leapt from one diagonal rung to the other like goats fleeing across a cliff face, he heard Kong give a deafening roar of fury and saw his giant body flying through the air on their right before smashing into the wall like Mufasa had while trying to escape the stampede, grabbing onto the stone with his squat digits.

Weaving through the thicket of defensive bamboo spikes, Jack squeezed through the gate, open just enough to let a single person slip through, Ann right at his back. Half-expecting a spear through his chest, he rushed into the mid-morning light, glaring and yellow, and down several steps. The first thing he saw in front of him was Preston, kneeling on the stone, eyes swimming with pain as he pressed a blood-soaked handkerchief against a fresh gash on his right cheek, his fingers and shirt collar dark red.

_Oh Jesus, the bastards _did _set a trap for us after all!_

He realized Ann wasn't with him. Swinging around, he saw that she'd stopped, stricken and aghast, just a couple steps from the gate, on which Kong was now savagely pounding. Her cobalt blue eyes were wide, her frail form motionless.

Following her line of sight, Jack suddenly realized that yes, they _had_ run into a trap...but this one wasn't meant for them.

What was left of Englehorn's crew was gathered in a loose semicircle around the gate or at the top of each flight of stone stairs that bordered the gate, a rope net loosely folded up and suspended between each set. Some men, like Baxter and Jimmy, held guns. Others, like 'Frigatebird' Watterson and Geoff, held ropes with great three-pronged grappling hooks attached.

_You've __**got**__ to be __kidding__ me,_ Jack thought incredulously as he drew close to Ann. Were they completely crazy? There was no way in hell that they actually intended to _capture_ the damn thing, especially after what he'd done to their comrades and Hayes. They had to be either desperate or suicidal, because Kong would kill them all when he got through this gate.

And from the forceful booming the ape made as his mammoth fists punched the wooden panels, a god playing on a set of drums, Jack didn't doubt that would happen pretty shortly.

Then, Jack noticed Carl's squat form nearby, directly behind the semicircle and facing the gate head-on. The producer was half-doubled over with eagerness, an expression of delighted anticipation below his beetling brow like the one on a cat about to pounce. He didn't even bother to spare more than a quick glance at them! No one did!

Jack saw Ann give the producer, his so-called "friend" a hateful, revolted look as they both moved further away from the stairs. A similar emotion exploded in the playwright's appalled soul, a thunderclap of disgust and disbelief and rage. Here Carl was, a man he'd known for eight years, and the fat son of a bitch couldn't take a goddamn moment to even tell his pal "Glad you and Ann are okay!" or "Thank God you're alive Jack, I was so worried!"? No, he was more worried about making a name for himself and providing the public with a spectacle by capturing this huge violent ape...a harebrained, suicidal endeavor if there ever was one.

For that matter, were any other members of the crew or Baxter-people he and Ann had shot the breeze with, danced with, eaten with, laughed with, shared knowledge with-offering _any_ comfort to his distressed Venus or expressing gratitude that their fellow human beings were still alive? Any pats of reassurance, an "Are you both all right?" Not a damned one.

To say that Jack Driscoll was galled would be too weak a word. He was vibrating with anger, seriously contemplating the idea of homicide, just to drive a point home. If the situation had been different, he would've lit into as many of the other men as he could right then with swinging fists, beginning with Carl.

But before he could express his near-murderous ire, Jack's attention was distracted by the sound of thick wood starting to splinter, and pebbles falling a short distance behind them while Kong continued to hurl himself at the gate, roaring wildly.

Grabbing Ann's slender wrist, Jack hurriedly pulled her further down the stairs and away. Even when they passed Carl, the pig didn't even acknowledge them, his determined, eager brown eyes still locked on the vibrating, creaking gate.

The clinking of glass got his attention, and Jack turned to see that Englehorn himself was there, the captain pulling a brown bottle from a crate of several similar vessels perched on a rock. A gallon of chloroform.

_Christ Jesus in a pig pen,_ Jack thought dumbfounded. They really were going to risk everything to try and capture the ape. He'd never imagined Rudi Englehorn would choose to participate in an insane gamble like this, not in ten thousand years!

The captain's steely sapphire blue eyes glanced towards them and held their respective gazes for a few moments. Normally stern and indifferent, they at least, contained relief and even commiseration.

Baxter too, panting from fear and the climbing temperatures, also regarded them from his post as he tightly clutched his Tommy gun, those arrogant brown eyes filled with helpless remorse and pity.

And then there was no more time to think anything else as the gate exploded inward. Jagged panels of wood as thick as railroad ties, huge splinters, twisted metal, rocks, and small boulders all flew outward in a dozen different directions-including over Jack's cringing head-like a hundred grenades had just gone off, making a sound like a whole grove of old trees falling in a gale.

At the same moment, Kong came flying out at them from the middle of all that destruction, landing on all fours with a thud.

As the sound of his impact, like a truck falling, died away, there was a brief, electric silence and a collective sharp, shocked intake of breath by every human throat at the house sized ape's dramatic appearance. This was especially noticeable in the case of Englehorn and the other members of the crew who hadn't yet had the dubious fortune of laying eyes on the beast.

"Mutter Jesu," Jack heard the captain breathily gasp, he and Ann now standing a little bit behind the German.

Quickly getting his bearings, Kong's eyes, those eyes so much like another man's, rested on the delicate woman Jack kept clutched to his body. And Jack would've sworn by the life of him that a sense of profound relief and joy came across those windows to the ape's savage, yet thoughtful soul at having caught up to her.

Snapping out of his brief stupor, Englehorn shouted "Now!" before any of his crew could lose their nerve about the matter, and Kong began to rush forward with a snarl.

Like a cowboy's lassos, lengths of braided rope as long as trees flew through the tropical air like a chameleon's tongue, the hooks on each end clawing into the flesh of Kong's shoulders and arms and hips, pulling him down.

"_No!_" Ann yelled in horror and distress, with such force that her body bucked against the playwright's.

His fury returning, Jack briefly released her as he charged at Carl, shouting, "Are you out of your mind?"

Even as he said it, it occurred to Jack Driscoll that his oath had been supremely redundant.

The fat bastard merely gave him a sublime, victorious smirk.

But before Jack could reply with a kick to the fella's marbles, his attention was distracted again by the sight of Englehorn, holding the bottle of chorloform by the narrow end like a baseball bat, cocking his thick arm back and pitching it at the struggling ape, huffing as he was steadily pulled down towards the stone, a bestial Gulliver straining against Lilliputians.

The bottle shattered into pieces, releasing a gush of liquid and a great cloud of hospital-smelling vapor that clearly stung the ape's great nostrils and eyes.

At the same time, Jack's eyes registered Ann, her blue eyes like an insect's in her moon face, muddy, half-dry hair sticking out, rushing at Englehorn's back.

"Don't!" she protested as she reached for his bent elbow.

In a sideways lunge, like a scuttling crab, Jack left Carl and grabbed Ann from behind, pinning her to his right side again. Bucking against his grasp, she wailed, "Stop!" at the men, her eyes swelling with distressed tears.

Ignoring her, Englehorn shouted, "Keep him down!" as the ape tried to pull himself erect again.

Two sailors above Kong each shoved a huge boulder off the gate. As they plummeted down, the rocks unfurled a huge cargo net attached to them, which landed squarely on the ape's back, pinning him to the stone and smashing his deep head into the ground.

Despite his understanding of how stupidly insane and yes, wrong, this all was, a part of Jack couldn't help but be absolutely awed and fascinated by how brilliantly this plan had all been orchestrated. Like Phineas Fogg or Houdini, Carl Denham had a way of making the impossible happen and plucking out stars from the sky, no matter what the resources or constraints. The only way he knew how to finish was to finish first, and do it with style in the bargain.

He had no idea why he was still standing here, especially when he knew that he was currently right in front of Kong and the very man that the ape hated most. Was it to help keep Ann under control? Was it to see how this all played out? Was it because he wanted to see the whole ill-conceived mess blow up in Carl's face so he could get a smug satisfaction from it?

"Please!" Ann begged. It was a wiry, thin sound that felt like a paper cut on Jack's heart.

Suddenly, she twisted out from his grasp, and desperately flew at Englehorn as he began to pick up another bottle, flaxen curls bouncing, teeth showing in a manic grimace as her shapely feet flew over the stone.

Smashing into the Fritz's arm, she yelled, "No! Stop!" as she tried to push it back and down. While they briefly struggled, Englehorn batting her away with the palm of his free hand, Jack arrived and grabbed her from behind, one hand on each upper arm and tugging her back.

He didn't want to do this. He thought of Ann as his angel. But she was also his responsibility. The sailors and Carl were all complete lunatics and idiots, so they weren't his problem any longer. All he could do now was get Ann back to the relative safety of the ship. Plus, his very _blood_ was yearning to get off, _off,_ **off** this nightmare island in the worst way, and Jack Driscoll was more than willing to listen to its advice.

Turning her head aside, even as she continued to hurl and press her full weight against Englehorn, she pleadingly said "Jack!" her eyes seeking and soliciting assistance that would never come. "They'll kill it!" she cried out, slapping and wrestling valiantly against the German, who snapped, "Get her out of here!" at the playwright over her rounded left shoulder.

Both the gash in his right shoulder and Ann shrilly protested as Jack steeled himself and dragged Ann's slim form away, apologetically, forcefully telling her, "There's nothing we can do," trying to make her see that this was out of their hands.

"Get her out of my sight!" Englehorn barked before wheeling around, readjusting his grip on the bottle, and drawing his arm back.

Harshly, Jack crushed Ann's body against his chest with his arms as she stared uncomprehendingly up into his face, tears trickling across her upturned, filthy cheeks. As she began to beat on his breastbone with her little fists, he hurriedly told her, "Ann, it's too late. It's too dangerous and I can't do a damn thing about it."

_And if you tell yourself this lie enough times, Mr. Jack Goralski Driscoll, you'll believe it, won't you?_

Then, they heard Carl excitedly snap, "Throw it!" At the edge of his vision, Jack saw Englehorn send the bottle sailing through the air in a smooth arc, turning end over end before bursting open right in front of Kong's prostrate face. The aging titan jerked his head aside, straining up and to the right as he fought not to breathe the Morpheic fumes in.

Still compressed in his arms, Ann turned herself to meet his eyes again. And the light that had come into those usually soft, adoring cow eyes was not a pleasant thing to see. It was a harpy's glare, twinkling with a terrible suspicion and savagery and irate betrayal. It made Jack inwardly cringe.

"Let go of me!" she thickly snarled in disgust, slamming the heels of both her hands into his scar-filigreed chest and shoving him away, her angel features a twisted, ugly grimace of hate and revulsion-directed at him!

And it hurt more than Nduli's claws ever had.

The entire universe seemed to stop for a moment. He'd done everything a woman could possibly want or ask for from a man, up to and including nearly laying down his life for her, and she did this to him? Jack gaped at her for a few heartbeats, unsure of whether to slap her, curse her out, or start crying.

The intellectual, assessing fragment of the agog writer trumpeted, _She doesn't mean it Jack! It's just further proof that she's overemotional and addled in the head! Just look at her appearance and consider what she's been through, for God's sake!_

Determination flaring back up all the hotter within him, Jack compressed his lips and seized her again, wrapping his hands around her arms in a manner similar to how a farmer restrains a turkey's wings by holding them together over the bird's back.

And like a turkey being pulled from its pen, Ann resisted wildly as he began to drag her down towards the tunnel, kicking and jerking and shoving and fluttering.

But the plain fact was that she was a female, and Jack was a male, further fueled by adrenaline. The plain fact was that he had more muscle mass, and outweighed her by about 60 pounds. All she could do was plaintively yelp, "Stop it! Leave me alone!" as he half-tugged her down the stairs with his grappling, wiry cinnamon arms.

Behind his back, in the way one can sense a thunderstorm coming, Jack could feel the ape's eyes piercing his back like daggers. As they moved further away, he could also feel the very air literally throb as the ape, watching Jack make off with his prize, shook with an accelerating, demigod rage, a snarling volcano of muscle about to erupt.

The awful understanding and certainty of what was going to happen sent Jack rushing down the steps faster, not caring anymore if he was hurting Ann or angering Kong further. Very soon that ape would be at liberty again, and he was not going to be displaying much of a sense of humor about the trick played on him.

Behind him, Jack heard a roar of supreme, sky-shaking, apoplectic hatred, a trouser-filling sound accompanied by the sharp, guitar-string cracks and twangs of taut ropes snapping and men beginning to scream as Kong burst free from his rope restraints like Sampson smashing apart the pillars in the Philistine temple.

He could hear the sounds of stone raining down immediately after, men screaming in mortal terror and agony, whole blocks of stone being thrown about, ropes whizzing through the air as Kong became a small hurricane of destruction, and Englehorn's accented bull voice bellowing in frustration, "It's over, you goddamn lunatic! All of you, run!"

_Should it even have gotten started in the first place?_ Just as he'd predicted, the whole attempt had gone horribly wrong, and was now leading to yet more needless loss of life and pain when the dumb clucks all should've just gotten the hell out while the getting was good.

Trying to plant in her heels, Ann's head jerked back in the gate's direction, then back towards Jack as she weakly shoved at him with her free hand, voice sticky with anger and desperation as she cried, "Do you hear what he's doing, what's happening up there? Let me go back and calm him down!"

"Fat chance!" he slashed back, tightening his grip. "I've suffered too damn much to let him snatch you away from me again!"

"He trusts me you bastard! I can get him to back down!"

"I'll believe _that_ the day I see my cousin's cows all blast off and fly to Saturn," he managed to snort scornfully, even as he frantically hurried her along. "Now be quiet and let me get both of us out of here alive."

Galled, she went silent.

The first tunnel, lined by its chilling, grinning skulls in their niches, opened up to reveal the rattan bridge.

His thumb pressed between Ann's ulna and radius, Jack tugged her along, both of them racing along the wicker and stick construction to the other side like squirrels, surviving sailors now joining them.

And not a moment too soon, for now Kong, features twisted and fangs bared with wrath, appeared on the roof of the tunnel across from them. As he swung around and climbed down to their level, broad gray back facing them, Ann spared a strained, upward glance at him before running on.

Jack didn't even dare look back for a second, just kept on racing. Off to his left, in the semi-darkness of the tunnel, he saw the muzzle flashes of rifles and heard their spitting report as two of the sailors fired at the ape. A sensible decision, but it made the playwright even more panicked.

As Nduli had demonstrated all too well to them, a wounded animal is a dangerous animal, and he wanted no part of having an even more dangerous version of Kong on the rampage.

And then, his thoughts were interrupted as they darted into the shoreward, much longer basalt lava tube, came around a bend, and saw sunlight filtering in. There was that wavy path they'd taken into Hades just two days ago (if you ignored Rafiki's meddling), strolling into the heart of darkness.

Now, just a few hundred yards away, at the edge of the sea, was the joyous sight of the lifeboats that would sprit the lucky out of here and back to sanity and civilization. Determined that he and Ann would be among the lucky, Jack tore down the basalt sidewalk.

Behind them, now swinging into the other side of the tunnel, Kong roared!

* * *

**The lovely canyon Ann and Jack pass through is modeled after a real-life place in California's Redwood National Park called Fern Canyon. When I recently saw this place featured on a Travel Channel documentary, I just knew I had to include such a primal, enchanting place in my writing! Interestingly, Fern Canyon has itself been used as a filming location for The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and the Allosaurus/Stegosaurus confrontation in Walking With Dinosaurs.**

**The mind-bogglingly huge sauropod Jack and Ann encounter is a brachiosaurid known as Sauroposeidon (earthquake god lizard), discovered in Oklahoma and currently thought to be the tallest animal to ever walk the earth! The term "pulling a Brodie" that Jack uses before scurrying past the beast was a slang term for doing something especially amazing or dangerous. Specifically, it referred to an 1886 incident where a man by the name of Steve Brodie, as part of a $200 bet, jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge. Amazingly, he survived and collected his money.**

**While I didn't feel I could comfortably insert it into the actual body of the chapter, the neck-flinging behavior of the Sauroposeidon and Kong's roar right afterward is meant to hint at some sort of inadvertant communication by way of infrasound. Many large animals have recently been discovered to have an ability to generate and hear sounds below the range of human hearing, including giraffes, which throw their necks backward as they emit a "message," and it's reasonable to assume that Kong's species could too. To make a long story short, it would seem that the Sauroposeidon heard Kong's infrasonic calls to Ann and threats to Jack (who of course, couldn't hear them) and became startled by the aggressive pulses, then reacted with an alarm and/or threat of its own, which Kong responded to with a human-audible roar, tipping our romantic leads off to his position.**

**The Iguanodons are included as a fond tribute to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of The Lost World. Plus, they were the second dinosaur to ever be named.**


	43. Aftershocks: Part One

**Well, here we are. The chapter where the unconfessed but very clear love and sweetness shared by our two leads gets flushed down the toilet. :( **

**This was a very difficult chapter to plan out and write. It was a major effort to sit down and divine/surmise understandable human motivations behind the behavior of the key characters in this scene, especially Ann, and then mold them to very out-of-the-way, stressful circumstances. And now try expanding it beyond canon material at that! **

**Not only have I been doing a delicate dance to ensure that this chapter sounded belivable, I've also been kept quite busy with other matters as my life has become ever more complicated-including finding a wonderful girlfriend! :) Anyhow, I'm sorry this took so darn long! **

* * *

"'...but how did two so well adapted to understand each other end?'

'Ah, well! you see, they ended as all great passions do end-by a misunderstanding. For some reason one suspects the other of treason; they don't come to an explanation through pride, and quarrel and part from sheer obstinacy.'" _A Passion in the Desert_, by Honore de Balzac, 1830.

"These are the wounds that never heal." _My War With The Ospreys_, by John Steinbeck, 1957.

Beware the rage of the patient man-Arabic Proverb.

"You! You're another shit-talking punk to me/ You're living inspiration for what I never wanna be/ And I see, you've been blinded by what you believe/ And now back up and sit and I'll show the act you need to be/ I am realizing, that everybody's lost their simple ways/ And now that it's here, I see it all so clearly/ I've come face to face with the enemy, oh the enemy!" _The Enemy_, Godsmack, 2007.

_And here we go again_, Ann thought with a despondent bitterness as she flew down the smooth stone path leading towards the sunlight, the shore, and the whalers lazing there at anchor. Just like she'd been forced to run out on Simba, she was being forced to run out on Kong-except this time Jack, not Scar, was the betrayer as well.

As their feet slapped against the stone again and again, her mind was a whirlpool of emotions and thoughts, many adjacent to one another yet mutually exclusive. They were the thoughts of a woman who didn't know what to think in this desperate, chaotic, situation.

Fury was a major theme. She was furious at Carl for playing with her life and Jack's by not having the drawbridge down and the gate open, using them as just another means to a conniving end. She was even more furious at the producer for orchestrating this disgraceful attempt to capture the magnificent, grand gruff beast that even now was pursuing them, and subjecting Kong to such distress.

She was furious at the Venture's surviving crew for not even acknowledging her and Jack when they'd come through the door, offering no comfort or chivalry, expressing no delight at all that she was safe and sound! No, their minds and hearts were just too infected by greed and the promise of money instead-and the impulse to conquer what was wild and beautiful.

And as much as she knew she shouldn't, as much as a part of her hated feeling this way towards him, Ann was suddenly very sore at the man she warmly called her Jack of Hearts. She felt immensely frustrated and let down and betrayed.

He'd been a part of this scheme the whole time, she realized. Oh, maybe Carl hadn't executed it in quite the same way that Jack had expected. But it didn't change the fact that, disgustingly, Jack had still chosen to play his role of leading Kong into the trap in this admittedly clever kill-two-birds-with-one-stone plan. It wouldn't have surprised her if he'd helped draft the strategy himself. Sickened, Ann couldn't believe her flame would stoop so low.

But was it really that surprising? Jack had known Carl for at least eight years, but had only known her for six weeks before the savages and Kong had gotten her. It only made sense that when the chips were down, he'd display more loyalty towards his pal, especially in a situation where she wasn't around to prick at his morals.

He probably also hated Kong, deep down, and therefore deeply liked the idea of punishing the ape for snatching her away from him, for brutalizing her, traumatizing her and making her scream.

She supposed she couldn't really blame him. Kong had made Jack sweat for her, be beside himself with terror that the ape would kill her at any moment, killed the good, noble Mr. Hayes before his eyes, and then dumped him off a log into a horrible chasm where the fella had had to fight for his life against huge bugs.

In that light, the idea of Kong getting the other end of the stick would obviously appeal to the writer.

She'd been betrayed by a man she'd deeply _trusted_, and not for the first time.

She and Jack were just feet away from the top of that one last flight of centuries-old steps, carved out of the subsiding basalt. The goal was within reach, the longboats just 60 feet away!

"Move it, move it!" Jack commanded fiercely, hurrying her down the stairs at a frantic pace. Ann did her best to stay in lockstep, windmilling with her free right arm as they descended. Only now did she begin to realize that there were other sailors right behind her and Jack, running with the desperation of hunted animals.

One thing she was very aware of however was that hell was by no means finished with breaking loose yet. And it was plain to all that the primary force behind this storm of destructive havoc had now entered the lava tube, the titanic ape grimly, ponderously drawing nearer. Fast.

As they rushed out into the open morning sunlight, she risked a wild glance over her right shoulder. Kong's implacable, determined bulk was no more than 150 yards behind them, the ape walking on his hind legs.

Jack pressed at her shoulders, and her head flashed back to the boats. As she did, Ann then heard the explosive barks of a pair of rifles behind her, then a shouted, inarticulate cry of shock and pain, accompanied by the sound of flesh thudding into stone.

It made her heart sink in her chest. With the ape's size and muscles, she supposed a shot from an ordinary rifle did about as much physical damage to him as a shot from a pellet gun, or maybe a .22, would do to a professional bodybuilder. Still, she was horrified at the idea that Kong was being harmed, and that two more men were now either mortally wounded or dead.

Why hadn't they done the smart thing, told Carl to go to hell, spirited her and Jack out of this ghastly place, left Kong unmolested, and fled to the open sea and the civilized world? Now it had gotten out of their hands, and more fellas were needlessly paying the price.

In a flash she and Jack were standing right at the prows of the longboats. That they were actually there at all, together and alive, was a miracle in no uncertain terms, barely believable. The surviving sailors behind and just in front of her piled into the boats with the headlong swiftness of prairie dogs diving into their burrows on seeing a coyote rushing at them.

A big part of Ann Darrow had no problem in the least with the idea of following their example, you bet your bottom dollar. But another part of her made her hesitate before stepping inside. Was it wise to do this?

In Kong's eyes, she knew it now seemed to him like not only Jack, but _all_ the men were hurting her, kidnapping her against her will. He'd been wounded by the grappling hooks and bullets as well, stoking his rage even further.

Most importantly of all, she knew too well that Kong wasn't going to somehow magically stay on dry land just because there was suddenly a stretch of water between him and her. His actions at the jungle river had made that clear. And if the water here was too shallow for the Venture, it would not be any problem for him to wade out to these boats.

She began to turn. Ann had no real idea exactly how she was going to persuade a house-sized, 25-foot tall, wounded and hyper-protective gorilla to calm down and leave peaceably-and without her in tow, of course-, but she did know that she was the only person who had the power to do it, and that it was the only option. She had to ensure that he was safe in the same way he had.

But Jack had other plans, and a second after she turned in Kong's direction, steeling herself before moving towards him, the playwright's hands crashed into her breastbone, pushing her back against the prow. At the same moment, she felt Bruce's arms grasp her waist in a steely embrace, pulling her over the bow and into the boat.

_No! Don't do this, you two! _Her mind screamed.

She fought both of them like a trapped bobcat, tugging against Bruce's strength as she wrestled with Jack, his hands like vises on her upper arms.

"Stay back!" he sharply commanded her.

Equally frustrated, never taking her eyes off the approaching Kong, she protested, "It's me he wants! Please! I can put a stop to this!"

Indifferent, Jack shouted over her head to Bruce, "Hold on to her!"

And indeed, as Ann wildly grappled with Jack, she then helplessly felt her co-star's grip around her abdomen pulling her down and back. At that moment, even though she was looking directly at the writer's horrid scars, Ann didn't know which man she detested more.

And yet, at the last second, she suddenly tried to pull Jack into the lifeboat with her at the realization he was about to leave and turn away. She knew that when Kong plunged into these shallows, the playwright's best hope for survival was to be in this boat alongside her, shielded by her arms and body.

He'd never bothered to tell her that he loved her, had made her run out on Simba and Mufasa, leave them to die, was refusing to lift a finger in Kong's defense or at _least_ let her do it, and was almost certainly enmeshed in the plot to capture the great ape. But Ann still couldn't bear to see him dead.

"Please! No!" she begged as he fought, trying to pull back.

And then to her astonished shock and disgust, Jack did a very cruel thing.

"Goddamnit!" he snapped in frustration before very deliberately shifting his right thumb to the inside of her left elbow. Being a doctor's son, he knew just where to strike, and sharply pressed down right on her "funny bone," or ulnar nerve.

A quivering, phosphorus flash of pain raced up Ann's arm, and she jerked back with an agonized little cry as Baxter pulled her completely into the boat. _You son of a bitch!_

Fighting against the movie icon, a mixture of wild, heartbroken fury and agony gritted her teeth and drew tears from her eyes as she thrashed in his arms. How could he do that, purposely hurt her?

_Fine,_ she thought as he turned away. _You do something like that to me Mr. Driscoll, than you can just go to hell. Get yourself killed by Kong for all I care!_

Then the chaos increased tenfold. More sailors piled into the boats, and now Englehorn himself was there at the bow of hers, pushing it off the shore as he commanded to its crew, "Get her out of here!" before leaping in himself.

Jimmy shouted "Come on!" and Ann turned her head to see that he was still on the stone, facing down Kong with a Tommy gun, prepared to sell his life to avenge Hayes.

Jack was alongside him in a flash, urging him, "Jimmy, don't be crazy!" in a harried voice.

She saw Englehorn's broad back before her as the captain took up his position, and everyone except her and Bruce began to row backwards like the devil was coming for them. She didn't doubt they would've happily sold their souls for an Evinrude motor right now.

"Let me go!" she weakly pleaded, her silvery voice ineffectually sliding through the salt air.

Then, from around the bend in the tunnel, walking upright, the ebony colossus that was Kong appeared, his eyes glinting with rage and muscles straining as he shoved aside a 30-foot tall pillar of crumbling black basalt to clear his path.

Until now, she'd seen no trace of Carl since Jack had dragged her from the village, and a devilish part of Ann had hoped dearly that the producer had been killed in all the hoo-hah. But no.

To her somewhat crestfallen amazement, she suddenly saw his rotund form leaping down the stairs like a pack of wolves were after his blood. Not dead, never dead, no matter what sort of scrape he got himself-and other, less willing people-into.

It was complete chaos.

His voice more desperate and terrified and frantic than she'd ever heard it, Englehorn shot a glance over his shoulder, bellowing "Row! Row goddamnit!"

She saw Carl leap into the other longboat.

She saw Apirana, the Maori sailor who, two months ago had assured her that the savages had not parted Jack's soul from his body, standing on a pinnacle of stone in an unbelievable, if suicidal, display of bravery. His rifle barked twice as Kong came alongside him, focused on the boats. Angered, Kong grabbed Apirana and decapitated him with a shearing bite, blood welling over his teeth before he flung the jerking body to the side.

Wasting no time, the great ape then promptly did a cannonball into the sea, water bursting 15 feet into the air.

"Go back," Ann whispered-urged-prayed-pleaded, for everyone's sake.

Then Jimmy began firing, Ann watching helplessly as bullets perforated Kong's flesh, hearing Jack desperately shout "Jimmy, no!"

With that deceptive speed, Kong was rushing, and then suddenly _towering_ above the nearer longboat like some titanic statue in an Ancient Egyptian temple.

It was all done so quickly Ann had no time to scream, much less command him to stop.

Raising his left arm, Kong brought down a monstrous, pony-sized black fist on the longboat's bow like a gargantuan mallet. Wood splintered and the occupants-including Jack-screamed in pure terror as the impact tilted the boat downward at a sixty degree angle, sending Carl bouncing out the back and into the drink.

As semi-terrestrial knuckle walkers that must support a lot of their mass on the bones of their hands and wrists, a gorilla's ability to manipulate and grasp objects is somewhat crude and clumsy when compared to chimpanzees or humans. They also have a curious phobia about touching new objects with their hands, or at least not until some time has passed first.

Yet Kong showed no hesitation or signs of fumbling as he then clutched the longboat's prow in his massive hands and flung it away to the right, men and all, with the expertise of an Olympic hammer thrower. The entire boat detonated against the volcanic rock and burst apart with an almighty, hideous sound of cracking wood as broken planks and flailing men plummeted into the water like stones.

Knowing one of those men was Jack, Ann could only give a strangled, inarticulate gasp of horror. Equally aghast, Englehorn and the other men sharing the boat with her winced back in supreme, terrified shock and expectation, knowing they were next.

Just like she'd done from the side of the gorge in the seconds after the wildebeest bull had torn the playwright from the ledge and back into the stampede, Ann jerked up into a crouch, desperately raking the surface with her eyes for any sign of him.

One by one, the suddenly floating sailors all surfaced. Then, like panicked otters, they immediately and sensibly dove beneath the waves to prevent being grabbed and shredded like Apirana just had, using the cover to swim out even farther or hide under the floating pieces of the boat they'd been sitting in just moments before.

So she had little problem noticing that Jack and a semiconscious Jimmy were still at the surface. After getting his bearings and spitting out water in a parody of a fountain statue, Jack leapt into white knight mode again on noticing Jimmy's distress, swimming to the youth and supporting his body as he backstroked away to a safer place, exactly like he'd done with her in the river.

Ann was deeply grateful to see that her fella and good friend/sometimes dance partner were both alive and okay.

A more pressing matter took control of her attention in the next second though, for then Kong, having neutralized what he perceived as a threat, turned in her direction and began to wade forward, implacable and colossal. Ann could feel the abject terror of the men sharing the longboat with her, half-mad with the helpless anticipation of what Kong was going to do to them.

Drawing in her breath, Ann willed herself to cultivate as neutral of a demeanor as she could, to persuade the ape that this wasn't what it seemed like, to settle down and let her leave. She began to shout "_Kon_-", but the words withered in her throat as she noticed Englehorn picking up and raising a massive spring-loaded harpoon.

Fresh horror welled up within her and she fiercely yanked the German's arm back, crying "No, no, leave him alone!" tears leaking from her eyes.

Unmoved, Englehorn almost casually shoved her away with an arm like an iron column, commanding Baxter, "Pull her back!" which the actor did.

Exhaustion was settling into Ann's slim frame now. The emotional strain, the tension of sneaking through the jungle, the frantic running and swimming, the futile struggling with Jack and now Bruce-they were all taking their toll on what fight she had left in her, and fast.

All she could manage to do now was helplessly watch and weep in anguish as Englehorn pressed the trigger, and the harpoon dart leapt through the air, a gigantic steel arrow, to bury itself in the huge ape's flesh just above his right knee.

Kong staggered at the impact, uttering a shocked, agonized roar as he sunk to his knees. She could almost feel his pain herself in her own leg, and certainly in her heart. Yet he grimly continued to wade toward them on all fours, slowed down, but not beaten.

Over Englehorn's right shoulder she noticed Carl crawling out up of the water and onto the rocks between them and the crippled titan, breathing heavily as seawater drizzled from his clothes. At first she thought he was simply trying to get to safety. But then she realized he was clutching a brown object to his chest.

Before she could dope out exactly what it was, Englehorn began to load a second harpoon dart.

"Wait!" Carl desperately shouted at the Fritz as he stood erect, hair plastered against his skull.

Equally desperate, Ann made one last, terminal plea as she weakly tugged at the back of Englehorn's shirt as he aimed right at Kong's chest, sobbing "No! No! No! Please no!" Now that Carl was standing, Ann saw that the brown object was a bottle of chloroform, and she knew very well what he intended to do with it.

Englehorn's finger was tensing on the trigger. Carl was adopting a Lou Gehrig stance atop the rock as Kong drew alongside him. And for the life of her, Ann Darrow couldn't say which man she preferred to see succeed, whose intent for Kong would be the kindest. Either way, this could only end in pain and tears now.

Carl flung the bottle as Kong lumbered by. It was a perfect shot, shattering on Kong's jutting brow in a burst of brown glass and choking vapors. The massive ape jerked back, grunting and moaning in pain and bewilderment as he clumsily scrubbed at his stinging eyes, coughing on the fumes.

As raw despair and grief overtook her, Ann felt the muscles of her legs give way, and she collapsed forward, into the bow. Now the tears flowed freely as she watched Kong try to do what he did best. Fight. Fight to stay erect. Fight to reach her side. Fight against the effects of the chloroform as the drug overtook his hulking black and gray body.

Then, still moaning and whuffing, a study in bewilderment, he slowly collapsed forward into the shallow water, just in front of the longboat. As he did so, he beseechingly reached out to her, his only friend, with a great leathery hand, chuffing softly. At the same moment, he raised his head one final time, and the expression in those wise copper eyes pierced her heart like a dagger.

It was a look of abject, helpless confusion, of uncomprehending betrayal, the gaze of a forsaken, humiliated creature. It said as plainly as words, "I thought you enjoyed what you and I had together?" Or maybe it was just a simple "I tried."

The anguish incinerating her from within was too much for even the strongest woman to bear, and Ann clenched her eyes shut, quivering and weeping as she turned away. A profound, limitless guilt enveloped her. She'd failed Kong, failed to protect him like he'd so bravely protected her, to stop this from happening to him. And while she'd managed to find the strength to keep her gaze on Jack as he'd desperately battled Nduli, letting the playwright know that she believed in and supported and loved him, she didn't even have the guts to meet Kong's eyes as he slipped into unconsciousness, averting her face like a coward.

Out of the corner of her vision, blurred by hot tears, she saw the ape close his eyes, and rest his deep head on the rocks just before his colossal form slumped in the water.

_Jack..._ she suddenly thought miserably.

Slowly turning to her left, she spied him bobbing in the swells, hanging onto a jutting rock with one hand while supporting a senseless Jimmy (who was now beginning to blink), with his other arm.

Those jade eyes, green as the kelp fronds surrounding him, were already fixed on her. Like Kong's, incomprehension and hurt and a despondent betrayal swirled within them.

As much as a part of her resisted, a dreadful switch was flipped in Ann's head then, and she gave him a cold, accusing, disappointed stare.

She heard and saw Carl walk over to where Kong's great head now lay, halting just feet from fangs that could shred the biggest, meanest grizzly bear that ever lived in mere seconds. A great shaft of morning sun illuminating him like a spotlight, his expression was sublime as he proudly declared to what was left of the Venture's occupants, "The whole world'll pay to see this. We're millionaires boys! I'll share it with all of ya. In a few months, his name'll be up on Broadway. 'Kong! The 8th Wonder of the World!" he snapped ecstatically.

At that moment, Ann Eunice Darrow passionately hated the entire race of men, and found herself crying again.

* * *

"Go to hell Carl," Englehorn snarled bitterly in response.

"Yeah, Den-ham, I wouldn't start crowing right after I just caused a huge, God-awful disaster," Bruce hissed, glaring.

"Hey, I wouldn't call it a disaster," Carl protested, holding up his hands. "We got the big ape in the end, didn't we?" he pointed out, gesturing at their prize. "And I wasn't the one who caused all the hoo-ha, he was. I mean, did you see _me_ smashi-"

"_Enough!_" Englehorn bellowed explosively, the producer cowering back in response.

Floating and rocking in the chilly waves, Jack was only half-listening as he supported Jimmy's body. His focus was solely on Ann, his angel who had become a she-devil.

He felt stunned and devastated and crushed beyond what even his literary talents could've expressed. It was like the wind had been knocked out of his lungs and he couldn't get it back again. How could she? Choosing a dumb _animal _over him, after all he'd risked and done for her?

"I am this close," the captain said, voice low and dangerous as he held his left thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart, "to having you shackled below deck and provisioned with only bread and water for the rest of the voyage while you sit in your own refuse...and I still may yet! Now you keep your forked tongue in your mouth and stay the hell away from me while we clean up the mess your scheme has made. Is that clear?"

"As crystal," Carl replied meekly, lips drawn back as he fidgeted.

"Good," Englehorn snarled balefully. "Anyone who's hurt or going to be in the way of moving the ape might as well come get in the lifeboat now to return to the ship," he announced, "since I'm-"

Suddenly, Jack felt Jimmy's body weakly jerk in his arms and cough, spitting out water. Head flashing around at the sound, Englehorn wasted no time in bringing the whaler alongside the playwright.

"Here, take him," Jack said, gently pushing a coughing, disoriented Jimmy forward and up as crewmember Chad Babbitt grabbed the youth under his shoulders and pulled him into the boat. With assistance from Bruno, he then jerked himself over the edge and slid inside near the middle, shivering from a growing ire and the water's chill.

As soon as he got his bearings, he looked up at Ann, sitting at the bow.

"Ann, how could you. Why are you..."

He was cut off when Ann raised her head and looked at him. It was a gaze of such resentment, such tearful wretchedness, so soaked with disappointment and accusation. He immediately knew he had to zip it and back down if he wasn't to send her over the edge. The sailors seemed to know it too, looking at her warily, uncomfortably, like she was a wacko. Perhaps she was.

Fine. He wouldn't voice his pain just yet. At least not until they reached the ship.

Mercifully, Jimmy provided a badly needed distraction then as he sat up, spluttering.

"How you doing Jim?" Jack asked, unable to keep his voice from cracking.

"You okay buddy?" Frank put in.

"Yeah, I think so," Jimmy coughed. "Swallowed quite a bit of seawater though. Thank you for saving me Mr. Driscoll," he gratefully added. "I owe you one."

"No, it's the other way around, and I just repaid it. Least I could do after you saved me in the gorge," Jack replied, forcing a weak smile. "We're even now."

"Yeah, we're both lucky devils, aren't we?" Jimmy limply grinned. Switching gears then, the young man nervously inquired, "Speaking of which, what happened to that damn monster?" sitting up and looking around as Ann flinched like she'd been slapped. "Oh, there he is."

"Yeah," Chad nodded. "Denham got him good with the chloroform, and in the nick of time too. He'll never be harming anyone again."

An expression of smug pleasure and relief flowed across the young man's features, and he nodded.

Three more crewmen hauled themselves into the whaler before Englehorn ordered everyone to row back to the moored steamer, where Jack knew he, Ann, and anyone else who wasn't needed would be dumped off.

And now, from the direction of the village, several more crewmen were now lurching into view. Some of them had sensibly chosen to hide wherever they could as the ape had rampaged, and had now surmised it was safe to show their noses. Others, limping, bleeding, and their eyes glazed by pain, were wounded, but still able to walk. They'd need rest and medical care as soon as possible, and the only place for that was back on the ship.

Noticing Kong's form sprawled in the craggy shallows, the new arrivals shied like horses, some swiftly beginning to backpedal or exclaim "Oh God!"

"It's alright, he's drugged-finally," Englehorn assured them. "All of you who are in good shape, take care of the injured as best you can until I come back in a few minutes. I'm bringing the others back to the Venture," he commanded, jerking his head in the steamer's direction.

The rowers pushed water with the oars then, and the boat began to slide backward, into the dazzling tropical sunlight.

The coastline of Skull Island, that hellish, insane speck of jungle and crumbling volcanic rock which seemed to stink of death and malice, was slipping away from the playwright at last. He wanted to feel jubilant and overjoyed, to spitefully yell "Good goddamn riddance!" at it and its demonic inhabitants, to cheer and laugh. And a small fragment of him did feel that way, very much so.

But mostly, he instead felt a burning, immeasurable injustice and agony. He tried to meet Ann's gaze, to at least gain a better idea of what the ingrate was feeling, but she steadfastly refused to even give him a brief sideways glance, hunched in the bow like a downtrodden monkey.

After going in reverse for about 40 yards, the crewmen at the oars about-faced and swung the boat around, stroking towards the Venture.

The rest of the ride was spent in an awkward, pregnant silence. No one dared say a word, all either deeply uneasy or contemptuous about Ann's inexplicable attachment and loyalty towards the great beast. Or they were just plain shaken by what'd nearly happened to them.

The actress seemed like she was semi-comatose.

The playwright felt like he was being torn to ribbons inside.

Why? How could she do this to him, after he'd nearly gotten himself killed several times trying to protect and reclaim her? Didn't she care, for Christ's sake?

The Venture's pitted black and red hull expanded before them, and never had Jack been so grateful to see the cluttered, seedy, capable old vessel again. Within minutes, they'd sidled up alongside it.

The faces of two crewmen, Saiful and Fabian, peered over the railing at them. Jack saw Saiful's dark Malay face twist in horror as Fabian's thick Dutch voice demanded in astonished shock, "Great Jesus Captain, you only brought one lifeboat back! What happened to the other?"

"Well, I not think _any_ of them come back ever from that Allah-cursed island, not after the great roaring we hear now," Saiful told the Dutch sailor.

"Never mind that just now," Englehorn snapped. "Just pull us up."

His voice contained a tone of grim, melancholic, disgust. Jack wondered if it was as much at himself as Carl or Ann.

After it had creaked up the ropes and was hovering alongside the deck, Ann was the first to step out of the boat. Although unhurt, her movements were mechanical and sluggishly uncoordinated, like those of a sloth. Her trim frame, watering eyes, short stature, half-cupped hands, and stringy, bedraggled hair further completed the pathetic illusion quite effectively.

Noticing, Saiful tenderly inquired, "You all right, Memsahib Darrow?"

"She's not right in the head, I can say that much," Chad spitefully grunted.

All the other sailors and Bruce nodded stonily in response, gazing at the addled actress with eyes that no longer contained affection and good humor, but now regarded her as something alien and repellent.

"Don't waste your sympathy on her Saiful," Jimmy's youthful voice harshly sneered, vibrating with anger. "She's an ungrateful wench with more loyalty for a huge murdering **ape** then her own kind!"

Jack had to nod miserably in agreement. He too, stepped out of the lifeboat in a half-caring fashion, mind stunned and raw and disconnected, his shadow trailing behind him like a broken wing.

Ann visibly cringed, wincing at both Jimmy's scathing words and the sound of the playwright's deformed dress shoes hitting the deck. It was excruciating to see.

"Really?" Fabian said, his accented voice filled with disbelief and bafflement as his gaze swept from Jimmy, to Ann, and then back to Jimmy again. "Is that true mam? Are you really _that_ addled in the head?"

Leaping on the opportunity to defend her actions, Ann shot back, "No, I'm not! But your pals don't know Kong as I got to know him, for the mag-"

Then Frank's face twisted and reddened in supreme fury, and he surged forward at Ann like a charging lion-Oh, Mufasa!- bellowing, "That's enough, you treacherous wackaloon!"

Ann tensed for the expected blow, and Jack found himself automatically, uncertainly gliding closer toward her side, even as a petty segment of the writer grinned gleefully at the idea of the actress being dealt a physical punishment.

But Frank stayed his hamlike hand, and Ann managed to stay firm, even as he pointed to the man off his right side and roared in her face, "How heartless and cruel and faithless can you be? Don't you have any _loyalty_ to this man, who tortured his body and risked his life Jesus knows how many times just to save your hide?"

"Well, what about Kong!" Ann snapped back. "He fought and killed three enormous dinosaurs who also wanted to kill me!"

"Now she refers to it by name like a pet," Bruno audibly muttered scornfully in his thick Czech accent, rolling his blue eyes.

Jimmy gave a harsh, bitter laugh, snorting "That is the biggest bowl of applesauce I've ever heard. We're honestly supposed to believe that huge vicious killer ape actually _cared_ about you? Enough to want to protect you?"

"We heard you like screaming like a gutshot rabbit in his grasp." Chad put in. "Kidnapped by a monster!"

"It's true!" Ann fervently countered, her shining blue eyes darting back and forth. "Jack knows this already. I told him about how Kong saved me before we even got to the beach. Tell them Jack!" she pleaded, turning in his direction.

Everyone's gaze was on him. Struggling against the waves of pain and ire roiling in his own chest, the playwright shrugged helplessly, hands outward as he affirmed, "I wasn't there to witness it, but yes, that's what Ann told me Kong did for her sake back in the jungle, and I have no reason to disbelieve her."

"Then if no one else saw it happen, she's just spouting plain horseshit in my eyes," Cromwell, a British sailor, dismissed contemptuously. The others nodded stonily.

"You should be goddamn grateful we decided to follow Jack's lead and came for you, instead of fighting to protect some savage demon that just murdered some of our friends-and we've already lost too many," Frank growled in rage.

"I _am_ you idiots, but-"

"SHUT your Christ-damned mouth, **you ape-loving slut**!" Frank bellowed, the palm of his right hand smashing into her breastbone and knocking her slender frame back across the deck.

Despite everything-perhaps it was just sheer instinctive chivalry at play-Jack lunged forward at Frank, shouting, "You keep your damn hands off of her!" At the same time though, a grinning, wicked little gremlin within his skull was silently cheering, pleased to see this ungrateful bitch get hers.

Meanwhile, with that gymnast's poise, Ann managed to catch herself in a clumsy squat before tumbling to the planking, and righted herself, trim arms held out in a posture of defense. Frank was drawing his arm back again, eyebrows and lips twisted with rage. He meant to clothesline her this time.

As the playwright got ready to face the daunting prospect of sliding in between them and either deflecting or taking the sailor's blow before...well, whatever he meant to do, a tall yet stocky shape charged across the deck even faster, feet pounding like drums.

Expertly, Englehorn knocked Ann aside with his torso and clamped on to Frank's right arm as it flew at him, wrenching the crewman off balance. The German then grimly backhanded Frank in the jaw, knocking him sprawling on his back.

Slowly, as everyone looked on in astonishment, Frank got to his feet, clutching his lower jaw, shocked blue eyes searching the captain's cold ones for any understanding.

"Captain," he said shakily, "what in the hell was th-"

"Unbecoming conduct for a crewmember is the answer, Mr. Sperry," Englehorn barked back before giving his subordinate a savage kick in the shin. "And most people would consider striking an unarmed woman to fall under that category!"

"But Captain, begging your pardon, she just interfered with the ape's capture, endangered everyone's life, shows absolutely no-"

"You do not need to remind me of Miss Darrow's outrageous and spiteful actions," Englehorn snapped, momentarily casting his glacial gaze behind him and on the vaudeville actress, who withered slightly in response. "But all the same, she is distressed, like all of us, and I expect honorable behavior from my crew towards passengers, especially women."

"Well it's not bloody honorable for her to be standing up for a savage killer after we've all paid dearly to get her out of its clutches," Cromwell replied, staring daggers at the nervous, yet resolute woman before him.

"I thought that was all he was too, but then I realized-" Ann tearfully began, but then Englehorn cut her off.

"You see? She's mad, the poor woman," he indicated with a breed of sympathy. "And can one really be too angry at someone who can't help their madness?"

"I'm sorry!" Ann hissed indignantly. "How dare you ever call me crazy," she tearfully droned. "I just wanted to get off this island, while you and your money-hungry henchmen had to set a trap for-"

With a terrible, steely deliberate slowness, Englehorn turned on his heel and transfixed her with a paralyzing gaze that would've done one of the Aquilasuchus proud. It was a stare of tranquil, barely contained fury and domination and it brought Ann up short as Rudi Englehorn, his voice like a buggy whip, droned, "Do NOT try my patience, Fraulein Darrow. On your account, Mr. Hayes, one of my best friends, my right hand man, and an outstanding first mate is _dead._ So are too many of my crew. Friends, partners, colleagues all."

" Now," he continued, "if you continue to protest or interfere with my efforts to salvage at least **something** from this utter train wreck of a voyage, or simply behave like an unreasonable human being in any way Fraulein Ann Darrow, I will have you chained to the wall of your cabin for a fortnight at best. I already have one lunatic to deal with, and am in no mood for another. _Is that clear!_"

"But Captain, sir, _please_ think about what's wisest in the long ru-"

"_DON'T. TRY. ME." _Englehorn gnarled dangerously._ "**Do you understand that, **_**du dumm henne_!_**_"_

Completely cowed, and knowing she was beaten in every field, Ann simply nodded pathetically, tears leaking down her shell-pink cheeks.

"Good," Englehorn spat curtly. Turning to face Jack, he coolly commanded, "Mr. Driscoll, please see your woman back to her cabin. In fact, I'd suggest clearing out your own things from the hold and find yourself a cabin as well. What's left of my crew and I are going to be plenty busy as it is, and the less people in our way, the better."

Mechanically, fighting the tears, Jack nodded and turned, walking towards the woman who'd just stuck a knife in his heart. "Come on Ann," he solicited, voice clipped as he passed her, extending his hand.

Although she reluctantly began to plod towards the hatch with him, the actress made a point of refusing the gesture. It sliced his soul in two.

* * *

Like a girl throwing a tantrum, Ann shoved at Jack's chest with both her hands as the playwright struggled to force the door wider and enter, to confront and reason with this female Benedict Arnold. Bracing his feet against the carpet, he strained, gaining ground even as Ann yelled, "Out! Get out! Get out of my room, you traitor!"

Grimly, Jack placed his hand on her chest and forced her back as he pushed the door open even further with his left elbow, snapping in shock, "Traitor? How the hell am I the traitor! All I did was fight to rescue you!"

He pushed again against Ann's lesser mass and weight, driving her back even further from the doorway. As she struggled to brace herself for another sustained shove, her feet got caught up in the legs of the toppled wicker chair, and she stumbled, nearly falling.

This gave Jack the opportunity he needed, and he lunged into the ransacked room, slamming the door shut behind him and placing his body between her and the handle.

Now that there was some sort of privacy, just the two of them together to get to grips with this, it felt like a type of permission was suddenly granted to Jack Driscoll, a freedom to release and feel his emotions. And he made use of it.

Regaining her balance, Ann seemed to resign herself to the fact that he wasn't going anywhere, focusing on putting the chair upright and under the vanity, then putting her cloche hat and the other larger items that had gotten strewn about when that filthy vile native had overpowered her two days before (in their reality, Jack had to remind himself) in their proper places.

The sight of it, and more importantly, the knowledge that Ann was doing these cleanup activities to avoid having to pay attention to him made his blood boil all the hotter, and he pointed at her possessions with a sweeping gesture, voice explosive in the confined space as he shouted, "Yeah, you see that! That's the same awful sight I saw just after I slipped in another man's blood _and _realized those crazy sons of bitches had snatched you away to do Christ knows what with you, _and _that I had to do whatever it took to see you safe again!"

"You know how that felt?" he demanded, voice cracking. "Like being told I was being sent on a one-way trip to Hell! And I did take a trip into it! For you!"

Ann's concentration only sharpened as she picked up the pace of her cleaning. The sight was supremely infuriating.

"Look at me! You look at me when I'm speaking to you goddamn it!" Jack trumpeted.

Sulkily, Ann plucked the sheets back onto the mattress and raised her furrowed eyes back to him, standing erect and crossing her arms.

"That's right," Jack said stonily. "You look at me Ann. Look at these scars I got from a crazy leopard who slashed me to within an inch of my life. Look at the bloodstain on this carpet from where a good man died trying to stop you from being snatched away!"

"But does that mean a damn thing to you? Obviously not, since you clearly value a relationship with a sa-"

"And _you_ value it too little!" Ann tearfully spat back. "I know damn well Kong's not tame Jack, but he was good and noble, just like Mufasa!"

Frustrated and stung by the agonizing, raw memories of the lion king's demise, the playwright replied, " Now don't you dare start comparing the two of them! Mufasa was an intelligent creature Ann! He could talk, understand speech, be reasoned with, trusted not to harm me or run off with you again the first chance he got! Kong can't!"

"You don't know how wrong you are about that last statement, Mr. Driscoll," Ann said coolly.

"_Wrong?_ **Wrong!** _Are you off your rocker_?" he shouted in her face. "Did you _want_ to get yourself killed or recaptured, you twit?"

"I could easily have gotten everything under control if you hadn't interfered!" she snapped back. "He wouldn't have hurt me!"

"If you honestly believe that, then you're even more of a lunatic then I thought you were," Jack snorted.

"Don't you dare call me crazy! You know full well I'm not!"

"Yeah, well, you sure acted like it back there! I mean, what the hell is your problem? Don't you have any loyalty to your _own kind _for Christ's sake? To me?" he croaked.

"Of course I do! That's one of the reasons I was trying to calm him down!"

"Calm him down? Calm him down," the writer scoffed. "Ann, listen to yourself! He's a huge, unpredictable, violent beast the size of a house! You honestly think you can prevent him from doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants!"

"Don't call him a beast!" Ann lashed back, stung. "He's a magnificent, noble animal, smart as you or I."

Sighing in frustration, Jack replied, "Look here! I know he saved your life, and I appreciate that in more ways than one. And I didn't want to see him get captured either."

"Why do I not believe you?"

"But you're treating him like he's your best-what I mean is-you seem to view him as like-like some _pet_."

"That's better than seeing him as just a vicious beast and an enemy to be shackled in chains," Ann said tearfully, her watering blue eyes filled with disappointment and accusation.

Suddenly, Jack understood with a sickening shock.

"Mother of Christ, you think**_ I_** had something to do with Kong's capture, don't you?"

"_Think?_ I **know** you did!" she yelled. "How could you?" she sobbed. "How could you go along with that pig Carl!"

"Ann, it's not true. I _swear_ I had no clue that he planned to catch the ape. I give you my word on that!"

"Why should I believe you? I bet you're secretly delighted to see Kong shackled in chains, after what he did to you and the other men, how he made me scream and be scared."

"Oh bullshit," the writer snorted. "When did I _ever_ say or show that I hated that ape or wanted him to suffer punishment? My only concern has been with saving your thankless damn hide, getting you back on this ship, and getting the hell out."

"I thought you were the one," Ann piteously sniffed. "I thought you'd always stand by me, always be loyal. But you're just like all the other men I've adored, faithless as a stag!"

"Ann Darrow, you're making a huge mistake," Jack pleaded, his heart sinking. "Jumping to conclusions."

"Don't even speak to me, you lying traitor!"

His ire mounting even higher, Jack shouted, "Goddamn it Ann, get it into your fool head that I didn't do it! Hell, if it makes you happy, I swear on my very soul and the lives of my parents that I played no part in this!"

"Oh come on! Did you think I was an idiot Mr. Driscoll?" the actress snapped. "Did you think I wouldn't dope it out in the end? I know you've been plotting with Carl all about this, figuring out a way to get back at Kong and get something really spectacular out of this journey!"

"Ann, I didn't even see him in the flesh until he attacked us at the chasm! And from that point on I was much too preoccupied with more urgent matters. You know, fighting for my life against nightmare horrors, pulling myself up vines, running myself ragged through a green hell all alone- all to save your skin!" he snapped bitterly.

"But you wouldn't let me help Kong, Mufasa, or Simba when _they_ were in trouble! You dragged me away and left those poor lions to die at the gorge, and now the same thing with Kong! Some big heart you have!"

"You don't understand. It was out of our hands!"

"You're the one who doesn't understand," Ann sobbed angrily. "Even worse, you didn't care. Well, I don't care either."

"I do care you ungrateful, rassing-frassing blockhead! It's just that I care about **_your_** well-being way more than any animal, no matter how intelligent, and would rather not see Scar kill you or Kong kidnap you a second time after all the hell and stress I've been through!"

"I was a fool to ever develop feelings for you," Ann moaned. "I should've known better than to get sucked in."

"Ann, listen to me darling-"

"I am NOT your darling, you cowardly weasel!"

"_And I am not your enemy!_" Jack yelled, bull-throated, causing Ann to momentarily wince in fear. "You want to make me a villain, rake me across the coals after all I've done for you, up to and including almost dying a horrific death multiple times, _fine!_ But at least have the guts and the brains to admit that the fault lies with Carl and Englehorn for planning Kong's capture, and not with someone who cares about your happiness and safety above all else! I never did anything but save your life and be good to you!"

"Just leave me alone! _I hate you all!_"

And then Jack Driscoll did something truly despicable in his injured rage.

Cocking back his right arm, teeth bared in fury, he roared "**_You goddamn twit!_**" and slapped her across the face.

**SMACK**!

It was an awful, sharp sound, like the one a blind produces when suddenly rolled up, and it seemed to not only fill the entire galley, but fill the entire world.

The force of the blow not only made Ann's head snap to the left in a toss of flaxen curls, it staggered the actress to the point where her legs gave way underneath her and she sunk to her knees on the carpet.

Jack's rage was instantly replaced by the nauseating realization of the line he'd just crossed, one from which there was no turning back. Something twisted deep inside him. Ann gaped up at him in stupefied shock and fear, holding her hand to her reddening cheek.

He'd never, ever struck her in anger before! She clearly didn't seem to know what to do.

Horrified, Jack found his voice first.

"Oh Jesus Ann, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do-"

A flash of fury sprung up in her great blue eyes, mingled with terror of him.

"You!" she shrieked, a harpy's cry as the actress sprung upright like a bedraggled gymnast. "You hit me, you son of a bitch!"

And indeed, Jack Driscoll certainly felt very much like a son of a bitch at that moment.

Numb and stupefied by what he'd done, the playwright put up little resistance as Ann, driven by rage and animal fear, flew at him. She kicked him in the shin, pounded on his chest, slapped at his angular face as he parried her blows with his own wide hands, being driven back as she screamed-sobbed, "Get out you bastard! How could you? I'll teach you to hurt me! I never want to see you again!"

Hurriedly twisting the doorknob behind him, Jack desperately babbled, "I'm sorry Ann! Jesus help me, I didn't mean to!"

"Too late for that!" she spat, forcing him through the doorway and stumbling, into the hallway. "Any boyfriend of mine ever strikes me, he can go fly a kite! Oh, and count yourself damn lucky that there aren't any cops around for me to call Mr. Driscoll!" she coldly added before slamming the door in his face and locking it in the same motion.

"Ann, I'm sorry, I lost control! My God, forgive me!"

"I was beginning to forgive you, accept that you truly had no part to play in capturing Kong," she snarled through the wooden panel, "but I'll never forgive you for dragging me away, and I certainly won't ever forgive you for this!"

"Okay, but I'm still sorry!" the mortified playwright groaned, shuddering with shame and guilt.

"You can apologize until the end of time Mr. Driscoll, and I'll still never accept it! Now scram you cad!"

There was no going back, and Jack gave a weary, defeated sigh. What was done was done.

"So that's how it's going to be between us, huh?"

"That's how it's gonna be," Ann sniped bitterly. "Now take a hint, you knife-nosed bagel dog, and **_buzz off!_** _FOREVER_!"

Seething with self-loathing and despondent frustration, Jack Driscoll turned on his heel and paced down the hallway.

_Let her weep and sulk and hate me,_ a petty little voice in the writer scoffed as a way of comforting himself. _She's an ungrateful, addle-brained harlot who values a giant, savage ape over her own kind, over a rightful human relationship between me and her! She fully deserved that slap, _he decided with a shaky, pompous satisfaction._ It felt good. Hell, I should've hit her even **harder** for doing this to me and the Venture's crew!_

_And if she hates me, wants to be alone, than fine! Just don't think about her or even acknowledge her presence for the rest of this miserable damn voyage. Remember, don't think about her._

The fury and resentment that had welled up inside Jack towards Rafiki for sending him and Ann back to the jungles of this diabolical island had never truly dissipated. It had just subsided, smoldered, like the magma chamber underneath a volcano.

Now, the knowledge of the complete disaster that had just occurred, and all because of that ugly baboon's insistence on sending them back to square one, only amplified it further. Ultimately, Ann had been ripped away from him forever because of that damn monkey!

Still, Rafiki had been just doing his job, Jack grudgingly admitted. He was doing what he had to do, not out of selfishness or malice. Besides, there was nothing he could do to punish the mandrill witch doctor anyhow.

There was one individual however, who he _could_ strike back at, who had set this whole sordid business in motion. His brain was lit on fire by the memory.

He'd been had, been betrayed, been turned on four times now! It was more than any other man that Jack knew of had ever experienced. Certainly, it was more than any man could endure without finally losing control.

Over the past several hours, the playwright had felt a kaleidoscope of intense, raw emotions. Anxiety. Hope. Confusion. Terror. Reluctance. Love. Protectiveness. Determination. And rage.

Now, rage was his universe, and it was rage of a terrible new dimension. Carmine filled the edges of his vision. His aquiline face was tinted a deep, sticky red, and every tendon stood out like a whip. If a rabbit, duck, toad, or other small animal had somehow had the misfortune to show up then, Jack would not have hesitated to gleefully slaughter it in cold blood with just his bare hands and feet.

Normally, the playwright would've dealt with any impulses of rage by writing a violent scene, cursing until he felt better, calling a pal and ranting to them about the injustice, or on rare occasions, destroying an inanimate object.

This time though, he didn't allow the rage to abate. It fed on itself, evolved, was directed towards a purpose, a goal.

Grimly, he literally _stalked_ down the ship's hall in the direction of Carl's quarters. He meant not only to punish, but to kill.

* * *

**Yep, Jack has lost it, and things are going to get mighty nasty for Carl in Part 2...**

**Du dumm henne means "You stupid hen!" in German.**

**Ann kind of did get worked over in this chapter, and I'll be honest when I say I wanted to do the same thing after watching this scene for the 1st few times, or at least chew her out like nobody's business. Does that make me an evil person? I don't think so.**

**Finally, I really enjoyed putting all those 30's era insults in here!**


End file.
